f 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF. 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


/,Vf 


•— JO  — 


SELECTIONS 


ENGLISH  PROSE 


ELIZABETH    TO   VICTORIA 

(1580-1880). 

CHOSEN  AND  ARRANGED 
BY 

JAMES    M.    GARNETT,   M.A.,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA. 


BOSTON,  U.S.A. : 

PUBLISHED   BY  GINN  &  COMPANY. 

1892. 


COPYRIGHT,  1890, 
Bv  GINN  &  COMPANY. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY  J.  S.  GUSHING  &  Co.,  BOSTON.  U.S.A. 
PRESSWORK  BY  GINN  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE. 


A  PREFACE  may  be  expected  to  give  the  raison  d'etre  of  a  book> 
especially  of  a  book  of  selections,  when  one  might  think  the  mak-, 
ing  of  books  of  selections  overdone.  But,  in  the  words  of  Leigh 
Hunt  (Preface  to  Imagination  and  Fancy),  "The  Editor  has  often 
wished  for  such  a  book  himself;  and  as  nobody  will  make  it  for 
him,  he  has  made  it  for  others,"  —  and  for  himself,  I  would  add. 

I  have  long  wished  to  use  with  my  class  in  English  Literature 
Professor  Minto's  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature,  but  I 
thought  it  useless  for  students  to  study  the  lives  of  authors  and 
detailed  criticism  of  their  style  without  having  in  hand  examples 
of  their  writings  of  sufficient  length  to  enable  the  student  to  form 
some  idea  of  the  justness  of  the  criticism.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  two  recent  books  of  prose  selections :  Saintsbury's  Speci- 
mens of  English  Prose  Style  from  Malory  to  Macaulay,  and 
Gallon's  English  Prose  from  Maundeville  to  Thackeray,  but 
neither  of  them  suited  my  purpose.  Mr.  Saintsbury's  book  con- 
tains too  many  authors  and  too  brief  specimens  of  their  style. 
A  book  containing  ninety-six  authors,  with  specimens  varying 
from  two  to  six  pages,  would  not  fulfil  the  object  I  had  in  view. 
But  Mr.  Saintsbury  has  prefixed  to  his  volume  an  excellent  essay 
on  English  Prose  Style,  which  should  be  reprinted  in  pamphlet 
form  for  use  with  any  book  of  selections.  Mr.  Gallon's  book  is 
not  liable  to  the  above  objection  to  the  same  extent,  as  it  con- 


iv  PREFACE. 

tains  fifty-six  authors,  and  the  selections  are  of  greater  length ; 
but  some  of  the  authors  might  be  omitted  without  much  loss, 
and  some  of  the  selections  here  also  are  too  short.  I  wished, 
moreover,  to  suit  the  selections,  as  far  as  was  consistent  with  the 
object  of  giving  a  satisfactory  view  of  the  progress  of  English 
prose  for  the  last  three  hundred  years,  to  the  leading  authors 
criticised  in  Professor  Minto's  Manual,  and  this  has  been  done 
in  the  main,  the  chief  exceptions  being  the  writers  of  the  present 
century,  most  of  whom  Professor  Minto  has  criticised  all  too 
briefly.  The  book  may,  however,  be  used  in  connection  witn 
any  Manual  of  English  Literature. 

I  cannot  expect  to  satisfy  everybody.  Some,  perhaps,  will 
criticise  omissions;  others,  inclusions.  Reasons  might  be  given 
for  the  choice  of  the  authors  and  pieces  selected,  but  it  would 
prolong  this  Preface  to  too  great  length.  I  should  have  been  glad 
to  include  more  authors,  but  I  had  to  bear  in  mind  the  compass 
of  a  single  volume,  and  I  fear  that  the  book  is  already  too  bulky. 
This  restriction  has,  too,  prevented  me  from  beginning  earlier; 
but  the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  was,  I  think,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  formation  of  an  English  prose  style,  as  it  was  the 
beginning  of  our  modern  poetry  and  drama,  for  Lyly's  Enphucs 
was  contemporary  with  Spenser's  Shepherd's  Calendar,  and  Lyly's 
comedies  were  the  first  worthy  of  consideration  from  a  literary 
point  of  view.  The  historical  student  should  extend  his  studies 
at  least  as  far  back  as  Wyclif  and  Chaucer,  to  see  English  prose 
in  the  making;  but  the  general  reader  will  seldom  take  up  the 
prose  authors  before  Lyly,  and  will  need  more  help  to  interpret 
them. 

I  have  appended  brief  notes  to  these  selections,  purposely 
limited  to  explanations  of  words  and  allusions  that  I  thought 


PREFACE.  v 

desirable  for  the  student,  but  not  intended  to  take  the  place  of 
the  classical,  biographical,  or  verbal  dictionary.  The  labor  of 
identifying  the  Latin  quotations  has  been  great,  and  will  be  appre- 
ciated by  those  only  who  have  undergone  similar  labor.  Some 
of  the  quotations  have,  notwithstanding,  eluded  my  search.  The 
book  has  occupied  much  longer  time  than  I  anticipated  when  it 
was  undertaken.  The  proof  has  been  read  repeatedly  and  with 
great  care,  but  as  I  cannot  flatter  myself  that  all  errors  of  the 
press  have  been  eliminated,  I  shall  be  obliged  for  information  as 
to  those  detected.  That  the  volume  may  contribute  to  acquaint 
the  student  practically  with  the  formation  of  English  prose  style, 
and  may  prove  to  be  a  help  to  the  teacher,  is  the  earnest  wish 
of  the  compiler. 

In  the  present  impression  I  have  endeavored  to  correct  all 
errors  that  have  been  noticed,  and  I  have  supplied  references  for 
more  of  the  Latin  quotations.  Professor  Schelling's  recent  edi- 
tion of  Ben  Jonson's  Timber  has  enabled  me  to  supply  some 
references  on  the  selection  from  that  work.  I  am  indebted  to  all 

friends  who  have  called  my  attention  to  errors,  and  if  errors  still 

% 
remain,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  any  one  who  will  notify  me  of  them. 

I   am   glad  to   know   that   the   book  has  been  found  useful  in 

instruction. 

JAMES    M.   GARNETT. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA,  VA., 
June  9,  1892. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


PREFACE iii 

I.  JOHN  LYLY  (1553  or  4-1606). 

Euphues  and  his  England.     Euphues  Glasse  for  Europe o .        I 

II.   SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY  (1554-1586). 

An  Apologia  for  Poetrie 24 

III.  RICHARD  HOOKER  (1553  or  4-1600). 

Of  the  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  1 49 

IV.  FRANCIS  BACON  (1561-1626). 

1 .  Essays :   Of  Religion.     Of  Unity  in  Religion 66 

2.  History  of  King  Henry  VII 73 

V.  BEN  JONSON  (1574-1637). 

Timber,  or  Discoveries  made  upon  Men  and  Matter 90 

VI.  THOMAS  FULLER  (1608-1661). 

The  Holy  State . 105 

VII.  JOHN  MILTON  (1608-1674). 

Areopagitica 1 28 

VIII.  JEREMY  TAYLOR  (1613-1667). 

Sermon  preached  at  Golden  Grove . 141 

IX.  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  (1605-1682). 

Urn-Burial  (Hydriotaphia) „ 161 

X.  ABRAHAM  COWLEY  (1618-1667). 

1.  On  the  Government  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 177 

2.  Essays :  Of  the  Shortness  of  Life.     Of  Myself 190 

XI.   EDWARD  HYDE,  EARL  OF  CLARENDON  (1608-1674). 

Essays:   Reflections  on  the  Happiness  which  we  may  enjoy  in 

and  from  ourselves 198 

XII.  SIR  WILLIAM  TEMPLE  (1628-1699). 

Essay  upon  the  Ancient  and  Modern  Learning „ 215 

vii 


viii  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

XIII.  JOHN  DRYDEN  (1631-1700).  PAGE 

1.  An  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy 233 

2.  Defence  of  the  Epilogue 247 

3.  Preface  to  the  Fables 262 

XIV.  JONATHAN  SWIFT  (1667-1745). 

The  Battle  of  the  Books 271 

XV.  JOSEPH  ADDISON  (1672-1719). 

Selections  from  The  Spectator  : 

1.  The  Coverley  Papers 299 

2.  The  English  Tongue 314 

3.  Criticism  on  Milton's  Paradise  Lost 318 

XVI.  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE  (1675-1729). 

Selections  from  The  Spectator : 

1.  The  Coverley  Papers „ 328 

2.  On  Reading  the  Church  Service 351 

XVII.  DANIEL  DEFOE  (1661-1731). 

History  of  the  Plague  in  London,  1665 355 

XVIII.  HENRY  ST.  JOHN,  VISCOUNT  BOLINGBROKE  (1678-1751). 

Letters  on  the  Study  and  Use  of  History :  Letter  II 379 

XIX.  DAVID  HUME  (1711-1776). 

Essays,  Moral,  Political,  and  Literary : 

1.  Of  Eloquence 397 

2.  Of  Tragedy 407 

XX.  OLIVER  GOLDSMITH  (1728-1774). 

Essays :  On  the  Use  of  Metaphors 416 

XXI.  SAMUEL  JOHNSON  (1709-1784). 

Preface  to  Shakspeare * 433 

XXII.  EDMUND  BURKE  (1728-1797). 

Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America . . 453 

XXIII.  EDWARD  GIBBON  (1737-1794). 

Memoirs  of  My  Life  and  Writings 472 

XXIV.  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  (1771-1832). 

Essay  on  the  Drama 49^ 

XXV.  SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE  (1772-1834). 
Biographia  Literaria,  Chapter  XXI. : 

Remarks  on  the  Present  Mode  of  Conducting  Critical  Journals  512 
XXVI.   WILLIAM  HAZLITT  (1778-1830). 

Table-Talk :  Opinions  on  Books,  Men,  and  Things : 

On  Application  to  Study 522 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  IX 

XXVII.  CHARLES  LAMB  (1775-1834).  PAGE 

Essays  of  Elia : 

1.  The  Old  and  the  New  Schoolmaster 536 

2.  A  Bachelor's  Complaint  of  the  Behaviour  of  Married 

People 545 

3.  The  Genteel  Style  in  Writing 552 

XXVIII.   ROBERT  SOUTHEY  (1774-1843). 

Selections  from  The  Doctor 558 

XXIX.   WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR  (1775-1864). 
Dialogues  of  Literary  Men : 

Samuel  Johnson  and  John  Home  Tooke 576 

XXX.   LEIGH  HUNT  (1784-1859). 

What  is  Poetry? 594 

XXXI.  THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY  (1785-1859). 

Shakspeare 613 

XXXII.  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  (1800-1859). 

The  Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration 637 

XXXIII.  THOMAS  CARLYLE  (1795-1881). 

1.  Biography 671 

2.  Hero- Worship.     The  Hero  as  Poet  .  .  .  Shakspeare 688 


I. 

JOHN    LYLY. 

(1553  or  4  —  1606-) 

EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND. 

EUPHUES   GLASSE   FOR   EUROPE. 
[Written  in  1580.] 

Bur  having  entreated1  sufficiently  of  the  countrey  and  their 
conditions,  let  me  come  to  the  Glasse  I  promised,  being  the 
court,  where,  although  I  should,  as  order  requireth,  beginne  with 
the  chiefest,  yet  I  am  enforced  with  the  Painter  to  reserve  my 
best  colours  to  end  Venus,  and  to  laie  the  ground  with  the  basest. 

First,  then,  I  must  tell  you  of  the  grave  and  wise  Counsailors, 
whose  foresight  in  peace  warranteth  saf[e]tie  *  in  warre,  whose  pro- 
vision in  plentie,  maketh  sufficient  in  dearth,  whose  care  in  health 
is  as  it  were  a  preparative  against  sicknesse ;  how  great  their  wisdom 
hath  beene  in  all  things,  the  twentie  two  yeares  peace  doth  both 
shew  and  prove.  For  what  subtilty  hath  ther[e]  bin  wrought  so 
closly,  what  privy  attempts  so  craftily,  what  rebellions  stirred  up 
so  disorderly,  but  they  have  by  policie  bewrayed,2  prevented  by 
wisdome,  repressed  by  justice  ?  What  conspiracies  abroad,  what 
confederacies  at  home,  what  injuries  in  anye  place  hath  there  beene 
contrived,  the  which  they  have  not  eyther  foreseene  before  they 
could  kindle,  or  quenched  before  they  could  flame  ? 

If  anye  wilye  Ulysses  should  faine  madnesse,  there  was  amonge 
them  alwayes  some  Palamedes  to  reveale  him  ;  if  any  Thetis  went 

1  treated.  2  exposed  (them). 

*  "  Variations  or  additions  of  words,  and  of  important  letters  in  words,  from 
the  first  editions,  are  inserted  between  [  ]."  —  ARBER. 


2  JOHN  LYLY. 

about  to  keepe  hir  sonne  from  the  doing  of  his  countrey  service, 
there  was  also  a  wise  Ulysses  in  the  courte  to  bewraye  it :  If  Sinon 
came  with  a  smoothe  tale  to  bringe  in  the  horse  into  Troye,  there 
hath  beene  alwayes  some  couragious  Lacaon  to  thro  we  his  speare 
agaynst  the  bowelles,  whiche,  beeing  not  bewitched  with  Lacaon, 
hath  unfoulded  that  which  Lacaon  suspected. 

If  Argus  with  his  hundred  eyes  went  prying  to  undermine 
Jupiter,  yet  met  he  with  Mercuric,  who  whis[t]elled  all  his  eyes 
out :  in-somuch  as  ther[e]  coulde  never  yet  any  craft  prevaile 
against  their  policie,  or  any  chalenge  against  their  courage.  There 
hath  alwayes  beene  Achilles  at  home  to  buckle  with  Hector  abroad, 
Nestors  gravitie  to  countervail  Priams  counsail,  Ulisses  subtilties 
to  ma[t]ch  with  Antenors  policies.  England  hath  al[l]  those  yat  * 
can  *  and  have  wrestled  with  al  others,  .wher-of  we  can  require  no 
greater  proofe  then  experience. 

Besides  they  have  al[l]  a  ze[a]lous  care  for  the  encreasing  of 
true  religion,  whose  faiths  for  the  most  part  hath  bin  [beene]  tried 
through  the  fire,  which  they  had  felt,  had  not  they  fledde  over  the 
water.  More-over  the  great  studie  they  bend  towards  schooles  of 
learning,  both  sufficiently  declare  that  they  are  not  only  furtherers 
of  learning,  but  fathers  of  the  learned.  O  thrise  [thrice]  happy 
England  where  such  Counsaylours  are,  where  such  people  live, 
where  such  vertue  springeth  ! 

Amonge  these  shall  you  finde  Zopirus  that  will  mangle  him-selfe 
to  do  his  country  good,  Achates  that  will  never  start  an  ynch  from 
his  Prince  Aeneas,  Nausicla  that  never  wanted  a  shift  in  extremitie, 
Cato  that  ever  counsayled  to  the  best,  Ptolomeus  Philadelphus 
that  alwaies  maintained  learning.  Among  the  number  of  all  which 
noble  and  wise  counsailors,  I  can-not  but  for  his  honors  sake 
remember  the  most  prudent  and  right  honourable  ye  Lorde  Burg- 
leigh,  high  Treasurer  of  that  Realme,  no  lesse  reverenced  for  his 
wisdome  than  renowmed  for  his  office,  more  loved  at  home  then 
feared  abroade,  and  yet  more  feared  for  his  counsayle  amonge 

8  that,  y  =  th.  (J>)  *  Common  error  of  omission  of  infinitive  after  auxiliary. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  3 

other  nations  then  sworde  or  fyre,  in  whome  the  saying  of  Aga- 
memnon may  be  verified,  who  rather  wished  for  one  such  as  Nestor, 
then  many  such  as  Ajax. 

This  noble  man  I  found  so  ready,  being  but  a  straunger,  to  do 
me  good,  that  neyther  I  ought  to  forget  him,  neyther  cease  to 
pray  for  him,  that  as  he  hath  the  wisdome  of  Nestor,  so  he  may 
have  the  age,  that  having  the  policies  of  Ulysses,  he  may  have  his 
honor,  worthye  to  lyve  long,  by  whome  so  manye  lyve  in  quiet, 
and  not  unworthy  to  be  advaunced,  by  whose  care  so  many  have 
beene  preferred. 

Is  not  this  a  Glasse,  fayre  Ladyes,  for  all  other  countrie[s]  to 
beholde,  wher[e]  there  is  not  only  an  agreement  in  fayth,  religion, 
and  counsayle,  but  in  friendshyppe,  brother-hoode,  and  lyving? 
By  whose  good  endevours  vice  is  punyshed,  vertue  rewarded, 
peace  establyshed,  forren  broyles  repressed,  domesticall  cares 
appeased?  what  nation  can  of  Counsailors  desire  more?  what 
Dominion,  yat  excepted,  hath  so  much?  when  neither  courage 
can  prevaile  against  their  chivalrie,  nor  craft  take  place  agaynst 
their  counsayle,  nor  both  joyned  in  one  be  of  force  to  undermine 
their  country.  When  you  have  daseled  your  eies  with  this  Glasse, 
behold  here  an  other.  It  was  my  fortune  to  be  acquainted  with 
certaine  English  Gentlemen,  which  brought  mee  to  the  court, 
wher[e^  when  I  came,  I  was  driven  into  a  maze  to  behold  the 
lusty  and  brave  gallants,  the  be[a]utiful  and  chast  Ladies,  ye  rare 
and  godly  orders,  so  as  I  could  not  tel  whether  I  should  most 
commend  vertue  or  bravery.  At  the  last,  coming  oft[e]ner  thether 
then  it  beseemed  one  of  my  degree,  yet  not  so  often  as  they 
desired  my  company,  I  began  to  prye  after  theyr  manners,  natures, 
and  lyves,  and  that  which  followeth  I  saw,  where-of  who  so  doubt- 
eth,  I  will  sweare. 

The  Ladyes  spend  the  morning  in  devout  prayer,  not  resembling 
the  Gentlewoemen  in  Greece  and  Italy,  who  begin  their  morning 
at  midnoone,  and  make  their  evening  at  midnight,  using  sonets  for 
psalmes,  and  pastymes  for  prayers,  reading  ye  Epistle  of  a  Lover, 
when  they  should  peruse  the  Gospell  of  our  Lorde,  drawing  wanton 


4  JOHN  LYLY. 

lynes  when  death  is  before  their  face,  as  Archimedes  did  triangles 
and  circles  when  the  eniray  was  at  his  backe.  Behold,  Ladies,  in 
this  glasse  that  the  service  of  God  is  to  be  preferred  before  all 
things ;  imitat[e]  the  Englysh  Damoselles,  who  have  theyr  bookes 
tyed  to  theyr  gyrdles,  not  fe[a]thers,  who  are  as  cunning  in  ye 
scriptures,  as  you  are  in  Ariosto  or  Petrack  or  anye  booke  that 
lyketh5  you  best,  and  becommeth  you  most. 

For  bravery6  I  cannot  say  that"  you  exceede  them,  for  certainly 
it  is  ye  most  gorgeoust  [gorgious]  court  that  ever  I  have  scene, 
read,  or  heard  of,  but  yet  do  they  not  use  theyr  apperell  so  nicelye 
as  you  in  Italy,  who  thinke  scorn  to  kneele  at  service,  for  feare  of 
wrinckles  in  your  silks,  who  dare  not  lift  up  your  head  to  heaven, 
for  feare  of  rumpling  ye  rufs  in  your  neck,  yet  your  hands  I  con- 
fesse  are  holden  up,  rather  I  thinke  to  shewe  your  ringes  then  to 
manifest  your  righteousnesse.  The  braverie  they  use  is  for  the 
honour  of  their  Prince,  the  attyre  you  weare  for  the  alluring  of 
your  pray;  the  ritch  apparell  maketh  their  beautie  more  scene, 
your  disguising  causeth  your  faces  to  be  more  suspected ;  they 
resemble  in  their  rayment  the  Estrich  who,  being  gased  on,  closeth 
hir  wiriges  and  hideth  hir  fethers ;  you  in  your  robes  are  not  unlike 
the  pecocke,  who,  being  praysed,  spreadeth  hir  tayle,  and  be- 
wrayeth  hir  pride.  Velvetts  and  Silkes  in  them  are  like  golde 
about  a  pure  Diamond,  in  you  like  a  greene  hedge  about  a  filthy 
dunghill.  Thinke  not,  Ladies,  that  bicause  you  are  decked  with 
golde,  you  are  endued  with  grace ;  imagine  not  that,  shining  like 
the  Sunne  in  earth,  yea 7  shall  climbe  the  Sunne  in  heaven ;  looke 
diligently  into  this  English  glasse,  and  then  shall  you  see  that  the 
more  costly  your  apparell  is,  the  greater  your  curtesie  should  be, 
that  you  ought  to  be  as  farre  from  pride,  as  you  are  from  povertie, 
and  as  neere  to  princes  in  beautie,  as  you  are  in  brightnes.  Bicause 
you  are  brave,  disdaine  not  those  that  are  base ;  thinke  with  your 
selves  that  russet  coates  have  their  Christendome,  that  the  Sunne 
when  he  is  at  his  h[e]ight  shineth  aswel  upon  course  carsie,8  as 

6  pleaseth.  6  finery.  7  ye.  8  kersey. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  5 

cloth  of  tissue ;  though  you  have  pearles  in  your  eares,  Jewels  in 
your  breastes,  preacious  stones  on  your  fingers,  yet  disdaine  not 
the  stones  in  the  streat,  which,  although  they  are  nothing  so  noble, 
yet  are  they  much  more  necessarie.  Let  not  your  robes  hinder 
your  devotion,  learne  of  the  English  Ladies  yat  God  is  worthy  to 
be  worshipped  with  the  most  price,  to  whom  you  ought  to  give  all 
praise,  then  shall  you  be  like  stars  to  ye  wise,  who  now  are  but 
staring  stockes  to  the  foolish,  then  shall  you  be  praysed  of9  most, 
who  are  now  pointed  at  of  all,  then  shall  God  beare  with  your 
folly,  who  nowe  abhorreth  your  pride. 

As  the  Ladies  in  this  blessed  Islande  are  devout  and  brave,  so 
are  they  chast  and  beautifull,  insomuch  that,  when  I  first  behelde 
them,  I  could  not  tell  whether  some  mist  had  bleared  myne  eyes, 
or  some  stra[u]ng[e]  enchauntment  altered  my  minde,  for  it  may 
bee,  thought  I,  that  in  this  Island  either  some  Artimedorus  or 
Lisimandro,  or  some  odd  Nigromancer  did  inhabit,  who  would 
shewe  me  Fayries,  or  the  bodie  of  Helen,  or  the  new  shape  of 
Venus,  but  comming  to  my  selfe,  and  seeing  that  my  sences  were 
not  chaunged,  but  hindered,  that  the  place  where  I  stoode  was  no 
enchaunted  castell,  but  a  gallant  court,  I  could  scarce  restraine 
my  voyce  from  crying,  There  is  no  beautie  bitt  in  England.  There 
did  I  behold  them  of  pure  complexion,  exceeding  the  lillie  and 
the  rose,  of  favour  (wherein  ye  chiefest  beautie  consisteth)  sur- 
passing the  pictures  that  were  feyned  [fained],10  or  the  Magition 
that  would  faine,  their  eyes  pe[a]rcing  like  the  Sun  beames,  yet 
chast,  their  speach  pleasant  and  sweete,  yet  modest  and  curteous, 
their  gate  comly,  their  bodies  straight,  their  hands  white,  al[l]  things 
that  man  could  wish,  or  women  woulde  have,  which,  howe  much 
it  is,  none  can  set  downe,  when  as  ye  one  desireth  as  much  as 
may  be,  the  other  more.  And  to  these  beautifull  mouldes,  chast 
mindes ;  to  these  comely  bodies  temperance,  modestie,  milde- 
nesse,  sobrietie,  whom  I  often  beheld  merrie  yet  wise,  conferring 
with  courtiers  yet  warily,  drinking  of  wine  yet  moderately,  eating 

9  by.  10  feigned. 


6  JOHN  LYLY. 

of  delicat[e]s  yet  but  their  eare  ful,  list[en]ing  to  discourses  of 
love  but  not  without  reasoning  of  learning :  for  there  it  more 
delighteth  them  to  talke  of  Robin  hood,  then  to  shoot  in  his  bowe, 
and  greater  pleasure  they  take  to  heare  of  love,  then  to  be  in  love. 
Heere,  Ladies,  is  a  Glasse  that  will  make  you  blush  for  shame,  and 
looke  wan  for  anger ;  their  beautie  commeth  by  nature,  yours  by 
art ;  they  encrease  their  favours  with  faire  water,  you  maintaine 
yours  with  painters  colours  ;  the  haire  they  lay  out  groweth  upon 
their  owne  heads,  your  seemelines  hangeth  upon  others  ;  theirs  is 
alwayes  in  their  owne  keeping,  yours  often  in  the  Dyars ;  their 
bewtie  [beautie]  is  not  lost  with  a  sharpe  blast,  yours  fadeth  with 
a  soft  breath  :  Not  unlike  unto  Paper  Floures  [flowers],  which 
breake  as  soone  as  they  are  touched,  resembling  the  birds  in 
s£gypt  called  7#<?.$-,  who  being  handled,  loose  their  feathers,  or  the 
serpent  Serapie,  which  beeing  but  toucht  with  a  brake,11  bursteth. 
They  use  their  beautie,  bicause  it  is  commendable,  you  bicause 
you  woulde  be  common ;  they  if  they  have  little,  doe  not  seeke  to 
make  it  more,  you  that  have  none  endeavour  to  bespeake  most ; 
if  theirs  wither  by  age,  they  nothing  esteeme  it ;  if  yours  wast  by 
yeares,  you  goe  about  to  keepe  it ;  they  knowe  that  beautie  must 
faile  if  life  continue,  you  sweare  that  it  shall  not  fade  if  coulours 
last. 

But  to  what  ende,  Ladies,  doe  you  alter  the  giftes  of  nature 
by  the  shiftes  of  arte  ?  Is  there  no  colour  good  but  white,  no 
Planet  bright  but  Venus,  no  Linnen  faire  but  Lawne  ?  Why  goe 
yee  about  to  make  the  face  fayre  by  those  meanes  that  are  most 
foule,  a  thing  loathsome  to  man,  and  therefore  not  lovely,  horrible 
before  God,  and  therefore  not  lawefull? 

Have  you  not  hearde  that  the  beautie  of  the  Cradell  is  most 
brightest,  that  paintings  are  for  pictures  with-out  sence,  not  for 
persons  with  true  reason?  Follow  at  the  last,  Ladies,  the  Gentle- 
women of  England,  who  being  beautifull  doe  those  thinges  as  shall 
beecome  so  amyable  faces,  if  of  an  indifferent  h[i]ew[e],  those 

11  a  pointed  instrument. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  7 

things  as  they*  shall  make  them  lovely,  not  adding  an  ounce  to 
beautie,  that  may  detract  a  dram  from  vertue.  Besides  this  their 
chastitie  and  temparance  [temperaunce]  is  as  rare  as  their  beautie, 
not  going  in  your  footesteppes,  that  drinke  wine  before  you  rise  to 
encrease  your  colour,  and  swill  it  when  you  are  up,  to  provoke 
your  lust :  They  use  their  needle  to  banish  idlenes,  not  the  pen  to 
nourish  it,  not  spending  their  times  in  answering  ye  letters  of  those 
that  woe  12  them,  but  forswearing  the  companie  of  those  that  write 
them,  giving  no  occasion  either  by  wanton  lookes,  unseemely  ges- 
tures, unadvised  speach,  or  any  uncomly  behaviour,  of  lightnesse, 
or  liking.  Contrarie  to  the  custome  of  many  countries,  where 
filthie  wordes  are  accompted  to  savour  of  a  fine  witte,  broade 
speach,  of  a  bolde  courage,  wanton  glaunces,  of  a  sharpe  eye 
sight,  wicked  deedes,  of  a  comely  gesture,  all  vaine  delights,  of  a 
right  curteous  curtesie. 

And  yet  are  they  not  in  England  presise  [precise],  but  wary, 
not  disdainefull  to  Conferre,13  but  careful  [fearefull]  to  offende,  not 
without  remorse  where  they  perceive  trueth,  but  without  replying 
where  they  suspect  tre[a]cherie,  when  as  among  other  nations, 
there  is  no  tale  so  lothsome  to  chast  eares  but  it  is  heard  with 
great  sport,  and  aunswered  with  great  speade  [speede] . 

Is  it  not  then  a  shame,  Ladyes,  that  that  little  Island  shoulde  be 
a  myrrour  to  you,  to  Europe,  to  the  whole  worlde  ? 

Where  is  the  temperance  you  professe  when  wine  is  more  com- 
mon then  water  ?  .  .  .  where  the  modestie  when  your  mirth  turn- 
eth  to  uncleanes,  uncleanes  to  shamelesnes,  shamelesnesse  to  al 
sinfulnesse  ?  Learne,  Ladies,  though  late,  yet  at  length,  that  the 
chiefest  title  of  honour  in  earth,  is  to  give  all  honour  to  him  that 
is  in  heaven,  that  the  greatest  braverie  in  this  worlde,  is  to  be 
burning  lampes  in  the  worlde  to  come,  that  the  clearest  beautie 
in  this  life,  is  to  be  amiable  to  him  that  shall  give  life  eternall : 
Looke  in  the  Glasse  of  England,  too  bright  I  feare  me  for  your 
eyes,  what  is  there  in  your  sex  that  they  have  not,  and  what  that 
you  should  not  have  ? 

*  So  Arber's  text.  12  woo.  18  converse. 


8  JOHN  LYLY. 

They  are  in  prayer  devoute,  in  bravery  humble,  in  beautie  chast, 
in  feasting  temperate,  in  affection  wise,  in  mirth  modest,  in  al[l] 
their  actions  though  courtlye,  bicause  woemen,  yet  Aungels 
[Angels],  bicause  virtuous. 

Ah  good  Ladies,  good,  I  say,  for  that  I  love  you,  I  would  yee 
[you]  could  a  little  abate  that  pride  of  your  stomackes,  that  loose- 
nesse  of  minde,  that  lycentious  behaviour  which  I  have  scene  in  you, 
with  no  smal[l]  sorrowe,  and  can-not  remedy  with  continuall  sighes. 

They  in  England  pray  when  you  play,  sowe  when  you  sleep, 
fast  when  you  feast,  and  weepe  for  their  sins,  when  you  laugh  at 
your  sensualitie. 

They  frequent  the  Church  to  serve  God,  you  to  see  gallants  ; 
they  deck  them-selves  for  cle[a]nlinesse,  you  for  pride ;  .  .  .  they 
refraine  wine,  bicause  they  fear  to  take  too  much,  you  bicause 
you  can  take  no  more.  Come,  Ladies,  with  teares  I  call  you, 
looke  in  this  Glasse,  repent  your  sins  past,  refrain  your  present 
vices,  abhor  vanities  to  come,  say  thus  with  one  voice,  we  can  see 
our  faults  only  in  the  English  Glasse  ;  a  Glas  of  grace  to  them, 
of  grief  to  you,  to  them  in  the  steed  of  righteousnes,  >to  you  in 
place  of  repentance.  The  Lords  and  Gentlemen  in  ye  [that] 
court  are  also  an  example  for  all  others  to  fol[l]ow,  true  tipes 
[types]  of  nobility,  the  only  stay  and  staf  [fe]  to  [of]  honor,  brave 
courtiers,  stout  soldiers,  apt  to  revell  in  peace,  and  ryde  in  warre. 
In  fight  fearce  [fierce],  not  dreading  death,  in  friendship  firme, 
not  breaking  promise,  curteous  to  all  that  deserve  well,  cruell  to 
none  that  deserve  ill.  Their  adversaries  they  trust  not,  that  shewr 
eth  their  wisdome,  their  enimies  they  feare  not,  that  argueth  their 
courage.  They  are  not  apt  to  proffer  injuries,  nor  fit  to  take  any  : 
loth  to  pick  quarrels,  but  longing  to  revenge  them. 

Active  they  are  in  all  things,  whether  it  be  to  wrestle  in  the 
games  of  Olympia,  or  to  fight  at  Barriers  in  Palestra,  able  to  carry 
as  great  burthens  as  Milo,  of  strength  to  throwe  as  byg  stones  as 
Turnus,  and  what  not  that  eyther  man  hath  done  or  may  do, 
worthye  of  such  Ladies,  and  none  but  they,  and  Ladies  willing  to 
have  such  Lordes,  and  none  but  such. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  9 

This  is  a  Glasse  for  our  youth  in  Greece,  for  your  young  ones  in 
Italy,  the  English  Glasse ;  behold  it,  Ladies  and  Lordes,  and  all 
that  eyther  meane  to  have  pietie,  use  braverie,  encrease  beautie, 
or  that  desire  temperancie,  chastitie,  witte,  wisdome,  valure,  or 
any  thing  that  may  delight  your  selves,  or  deserve  praise  of 
others. 

But  another  sight  there  is  in  my  Glasse,  which  maketh  me  sigh 
for  griefe  I  can-not  shewe  it,  and  yet  had  I  rather  offend  in  dero- 
gating 14  from  my  Glasse,  then  my  good  will. 

Blessed  is  that  Land  that  hath  all  commodities  to  encrease  the 
common  wealth,  happye  is  that  Islande  that  hath  wise  counsailours 
to  maintaine  it,  vertuous  courtiers  to  beautifie  it,  noble  Gentle- 
menne  to  advance  it,  but  to  have  suche  a  Prince  to  governe  it  as 
is  their  Soveraigne  queene,  I  know  not  whether  I  should  thinke  the 
people  to  be  more  fortunate,  or  the  Prince  famous,  whether  their 
felicitie  be  more  to  be  had  in  admiration,  that  have  such  a  ruler, 
or  hir  vertues  to  be  honoured,  that  hath  such  royaltie  :  for  such 
is  their  estat[e]  ther[e]  that  I  am  enforced  to  think  that  every 
day  is  as  lucky  to  the  Englishmen,  as  the  sixt  day  of  Februarie 
hath  beene  to  the  Grecians. 

But  I  see  you  gase  untill  I  shew  this  Glasse,  which  you  having 
once  scene,  will  make  you  giddy  :  Oh  Ladies,  I  know  not  when  to 
begin,  nor  where  to  ende  :  for  the  more  I  go  about  to  expresse 
the  brightnes,  the  more  I  finde  mine  eyes  bleared ;  the  neerer  I 
desire  to  come  to  it,  the  farther  I  se[e]me  from  it,  not  unlike  unto 
Simonides,  who  being  curious  to  set  downe  what  God  was,  the 
more  leysure  he  tooke,  the  more  loth  hee  was  to  meddle,  saying 
that  in  thinges  above  reach,  it  was  easie  to  catch  a  straine,15  but 
impossible  to  touch  a  Star :  and  ther[e]fore  scarse  tollerable  to 
poynt  at  that  which  one  can  never  pull  at.  When  Alexander  had 
commaunded  that  none  shoulde  paint  him  but  Appelles,  none 
carve  him  but  Lysippus,  none  engrave  him  but  Pirgotales  [Pergo- 
tales~\,  Parrhasius  framed  a  Table  squared,  everye  way  twoo  hun- 

14  detracting.  15  to  overexert  one's  self. 


10  JOHN  LYLY. 

dred  foote,  which  in  the  borders  he  trimmed  with  fresh  coulours, 
and  limmed  with  fine  golde,  leaving  all  the  other  roume  [roome] 
with-out  knotte  or  lyne,  which  table  he  presented  to  Alexander, 
who,  no  lesse  mervailing  at  the  bignes,  then  at  the  barenes, 
demaunded  to  what  ende  he  gave  him  a  frame  with-out  face, 
being  so  naked,  and  with-out  fashion,  being  so  great.  Parrhasius 
aunswered  him,  let  it  be  lawful  for  Parrhasius,  O  Alexander,  to 
shew  a  Table  wherin  he  would  paint  Alexander,  if  it  were  not 
unlawfull,  and  for  others  to  square  Timber,  though  Lysippus  carve 
it,  and  for  all  to  cast  brasse  though  Pirgoteles  \Pergoteles\  ingrave 
it.  Alexander,  perceiving  the  good  minde  of  Parrhasius,  par- 
doned his  boldnesse,  and  preferred 1G  his  arte  :  yet  enquyring  why 
hee  framed  the  table  so  bygge,  he  aunswered  that  hee  thought  that 
frame  to  bee  but  little  enough  for  his  Picture,  when  the  whole 
worlde  was  to  little  for  his  personne,  saying  that  Alexander  must 
as  well  be  praysed,  as  paynted,  and  that  all  hys  victoryes  and  ver- 
tues  were  not  for  to  bee  drawne  in  the  Compasse  of  a  Sygnette, 
[Signet]  but  in  a  fielde. 

This  aunswer  Alexander  both  lyked  and  rewarded,  insomuch 
that  it  was  lawful  ever  after  for  Parrhasius  both  to  praise  that 
noble  king  and  to  paint  him. 

In  the  like  manner  I  hope  that,  though  it  be  not  requisite 
that  any  should  paynt  their  Prince  in  England,  that  can-not  suf- 
ficiently perfect  hir,  yet  it  shall  not  be  thought  rashnesse  or  rude- 
nesse  for  Euphues  to  frame  a  table  for  Elizabeth,  though  he 
presume  not  to  paynt  hir.  Let  Appelles  shewe  his  fine  arte, 
Euphues  will  manifest  his  faythfull  heart,  the  one  can  but  prove 
his  conceite  to  blase  his  cunning,  the  other  his  good  will  to 
grinde  his  coulours  :  hee  that  whetteth  the  tooles  is  not  to  bee 
misliked,  though  hee  can-not  carve  the  Image ;  the  worme  that 
spinneth  the  silke  is  to  be  esteemed,  though  she  "cannot  worke 
the  sampler;  they  that  fell  tymber  for  shippes,  are  not  to  be 
blamed,  bicause  they  can-not  builde  shippes. 

16  commended. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  11 

He  that  caryeth  morter  furthereth  the  building,  though  hee  be 
no  expert  Mason ;  hee  that  diggeth  the  garden  is  to  be  considered, 
though  he  cannot  treade  the  knottes 17 ;  the  Gold-smythes  boye 
must  have  his  wages  for  blowing  the  fire,  though  he  can-not  fashion 
the  Jewell. 

Then,  Ladyes,  I  hope  poore  Euphues  shall  not  bee  reviled, 
though  hee  deserve  not  to  bee  rewarded.  I  will  set  downe  this 
Elizabeth,  as  neere  as  I  can :  And  it  may  be  that,  as  the  Venus  of 
Appelles  not  finished,  the  Tindarides  of  Nichomachus  not  ended, 
the  Medea  of  Timomachus  not  perfected,  the  table  of  Parrhasius 
not  couloured,  brought  greater  desire  to  them  to  consumate  them, 
and  to  others  to  see  them  :  so  the  Elizabeth  of  Euphues,  being 
but  shadowed  for  others  to  vernish,  but  begun  for  others  to  ende, 
but  drawen  with  a  blacke  coale,  for  others  to  blaze  with  a  bright 
coulour,  may  worke  either  'a  desire  in  Euphues  heereafter,  if  he 
live,  to  ende  it,  or  a  minde  in  those  that  are  better  able  to  amende 
it,  or  in  all  (if  none  can  worke  it)  a  wil[l]  to  wish  it.  In  the 
meane  season  I  say  as  Zeuxis  did  when  he  had  drawen  the  picture 
of  A/a/an/a,  more  wil  envie  me  then  imitate  me,  and  not  corn- 
men  de  it  though  they  cannot  amende  it.  But  I  come  to  my 
England. 

There  were  for  a  long  time  civill  wars  in  this  [the]  countrey, 
by  reason  of  several  claymes  to  the  Crowne,  betweene  the  two 
famous  and  noble  houses  of  Lancaster  and  Yorke,  either  of  them 
pretending  to  be  of  the  royall  bloude,  which  caused  them  both  to 
spende  their  vitall  bloode  ;  these  jarres  continued  long,  not  with- 
out great  losse,  both  to  the  Nobilitie  and  Communaltie,  who, 
joyning  not  in  one,  but  divers  parts,  turned  the  realme  to  great 
mine,  having  almost  destroyed  their  countrey  before  they  coulde 
annoynt  *  a  king. 

But  the  lyving  God,  who  was  loath  to  oppresse  England,  at  last 
began  to  represse  injuries,  and  to  give  an  ende  by  mercie  to  those 
that  could  finde  no  ende  of  malice,  nor  looke  for  any  ende  of  mis- 

17  lay  out  the  garden  plots.  *  anoint. 


12  JOHN  LYLY. 

chiefe.  So  tender  a  care  hath  he  alwaies  had  of  that  England  as 
of  a  new  Israel,  his  chosen  and  peculier  [peculiar]  people. 

This  peace  began  by  a  marriage  solemnized  by  Gods  speciall 
providence  betweene  Henrie  Earle  of  Ritchmond,  heire  of  the 
house  of  Lancaster,  and  Elizabeth,  daughter  to  Edward  the 
fourth,  the  undoubted  issue  and  heire  of  the  house  of  Yorke, 
where  by  (as  they  tearme  it)  the  redde  Rose  and  the  white  were 
united  and  joyned  together.  Out  of  these  Roses  sprang  two  noble 
buddes,  Prince  Arthur  and  Henrie,  the  eldest  dying  without  issue, 
the  other  of  most  famous  memorie  leaving  behind  him  three  chil- 
dren, Prince  Edwarde,  the  Ladie  Marie,  the  Ladie  Elizabeth. 
King  Edwarde  lived  not  long,  which  coulde  never  for  that  Realme 
have  lived  too  long,  but  sharpe  frostes  bite  forwarde  springes, 
Easterly  windes  blasteth  towardly 18  blossoms,  cruell  death  spareth 
not  those  which  we  our  selves  living  cannot  spare. 

The  elder  sister,  the  Princes  Marie,  succeeded  as  next  heire  to 
the  crowne,  and  as  it  chaunced  nexte  heire  to  the  grave,  touching 
whose  life  I  can  say  little  bicause  I  was  scarce  borne,  and  what 
others  say,  of19  me  shalbe  forborne. 

This  Queene  being  deseased  [deceased],  Elizabeth,  being  of  the 
age  of  xxii.*  yeares,  of  more  beautie  then  honour,  and  yet  of  more 
honour  then  any  earthly  creature,  was  called  from  a  prisoner  to 
be  a  Prince,  from  the  castell  [Castle]  to  the  crowne,  from  the 
feare  of  loosing  hir  heade,  to  be  supreame  heade.  And  here, 
Ladies,  it  may  be  you  wil[l]  move  a  question,  why  this  noble 
Ladie  was  either  in  daunger  of  death,  or  cause  of  distresse,  which, 
had  you  thought  to  have  passed  in  silence,  I  would  notwithstand- 
ing have  reveiled  [revealed]. 

This  Ladie  all  the  time  of  hir  sisters  reigne  was  kept  close,  as 
one  that  tendered  m  not  those  proceedings  which  were  contrarie 
to  hir  conscience,  who,  having  divers  enemies,  endured  many 
crosses,  but  so  patiently  as  in  hir  deepest  sorrow,  she  would  rather 
sigh  for  the  libertie  of  the  gospel  then  hir  own  freedome.  Suffer- 

18  early.  19  by.  *  xxv.  w  favored. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  13 

ing  her  inferiours  to  triumph  over  hir,  hir  foes  to  threaten  hir,  hir 
dissembling  friends  to  undermine  hir,  learning  in  all  this  miserie 
onely  the  patience  that  Zeno  taught  Eretricus,  to  beare  and  for- 
beare,  never  seeking  revenge  but  with  good  Lycitrgus,  to  loose  hir 
owne  eye,  rather  then  to  hurt  an  others  eye. 

But  being  nowe  placed  in  the  seate  royall,  she  first  of  al[l]  estab- 
lished religion,  banished  poperie,  advaunced  the  worde,  that  before 
was  so  much  defaced,  who  having  in  hir  hande  the  sworde  to 
revenge,  used  rather  bountifully  to  reward  :  Being  as  farre  from 
rigour  when  shee  might  have  killed,  as  hir  enemies  were  from 
honestie  when  they  coulde  not,  giving  a  general  pardon,  when  she 
had  cause  to  use  perticuler  punishments,  preferring  the  name  of 
pittie  before  the  remembrance  of  perils,  thinking  no  revenge  more 
princely,  then  to  spare  when  she  might  spill,21  to  staye  when  she 
might  strike,  to  profer  to  save  with  mercie,  when  she  might  have 
destroyed  with  justice.  Heere  is  the  clemencie  worthie  commen- 
dation and  admiration,  nothing  inferiour  to  the  gentle  disposition 
of  Arts  fides,  who  after  his  exile  did  not  so  much  as  note  them  that 
banished  him,  saying  with  Alexander  that  there  can  be  nothing 
more  noble  then  to  doe  well  to  those  that  deserve  yll. 

This  mightie  and  merciful  Queene,  having  many  bils  [billes]  of 
private  persons,  yat  sought  before  time  to  betray  hir,  burnt  them 
all,  resembling  Julius  Casar,  who,  being  presented  with  ye  like 
complaints  of  his  commons,  threw  them  into  ye  fire,  saying  that 
he  had  rather  not  knowe  the  names  of  rebels,  then  have  occasion 
to  reveng[e],  thinking  it  better  to  be  ignorant  of  those  that  hated 
him,  then  to  be  angrie  with  them. 

This  clemencie  did  hir  majestic  not  onely  shew  at  hir  comming 
to  the  crowne,  but  also  throughout  hir  whole  governement,  when 
she  hath  spared  to  shedde  their  bloods  that  sought  to  spill  hirs, 
not  racking  the  lawes  to  extremitie,  but  mittigating  the  rigour  with 
mercy,  insomuch  as  it  may  be  said  of  yat  royal  Monarch  as  it  was 
of  Antonius,  surnamed  ye  godly  Emperour,  who  raigned  many 

21  destroy. 


14  JOHN  LYLY. 

yeares  with-out  the  effusion  of  blood.  What  greater  vertue  can 
there  be  in  a  Prince  then  mercy,  what  greater  praise  then  to  abate 
the  edge  which  she  should  wette,22  to  pardon  where  she  shoulde 
punish,  to  rewarde  where  she  should  revenge. 

I  my  selfe  being  in  England,  when  hir  majestic  was  for  hir 
recreation  in  hir  Barge  upon  ye  Thames,  hard  of  a  Gun  that  was 
shotte  off,  though  of  the  partie  unwittingly,  yet  to  hir  noble  person 
daungerously,  which  fact  she  most  graciously  pardoned,  accepting 
a  just  excuse  before  a  great  amends,  taking  more  griefe  for  hir 
poore  Bargeman  that  was  a  little  hurt,  then  care  for  hir  selfe  that 
stoode  in  greatest  hasarde  :  O  rare  example  of  pittie,  O  singuler 
spectacle  of  pietie. 

Divers  besides  have  there  beene  which  by  private  conspiracies, 
open  rebellions,  close  wiles,  cruel  witchcraftes,  have  sought  to  ende 
hir  life,  which  saveth  all  their  lives,  whose  practises  by  the  divine 
providence  of  the  almightie  have  ever  been  disclosed,  insomuch 
that  he  hath  kept  hir  safe  in  the  whales  belly  when  hir  subjects 
went  about  to  throwe  hir  into  the  sea,  preserved  hir  in  the  [hotte] 
hoat  Oven,  when  hir  enimies  encreased  the  fire,  not  suffering  a 
haire  to  fal[l]from  hir,  much  lesse  any  harme  to  fasten  uppon  hir. 
These  injuries  and  treasons  of  hir  subjects,  these  policies  and 
undermining  of  forreine  nations  so  little  moved  hir,  yat  she 
woulde  often  say,  Let  them  knowe  that,  though  it  bee  not  lawfull 
for  them  to  speake  what  they  list,  yet  it  is  [is  it]  lawfull  for  us  to 
doe  with  them  what  we  list,  being  alwayes  of  that  mercifull  minde 
which  was  in  Theodosius,  who  wished  rather  that  he  might  call  the 
deade  to  life,  then  put  the  living  to  death,  saying  with  Augiistus, 
when  she  shoulde  set  hir  hande  to  any  condempnation,  I  woulde 
to  God  we  could  not  writ[e].  Infinite  were  the  ensamples  that 
might  be  alledged,  and  almost  incredible,  whereby  shee  hath  shewed 
hir  selfe  a  Lambe  in  meekenesse,  when  she  had  cause  to  be  a  Lion 
in  might,  proved  a  Dove  in  favour,  when  she  was  provoked  to  be 
an  Eagle  in  fiercenesse,  requiting  injuries  with  benefits,  revenging 

22  whet. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  15 

grudges  with  gifts,  in  highest  majestic  bearing  the  lowest  minde, 
forgiving  all  that  sued  for  mercie,  and  forgetting  all  that  deserved 
Justice. 

O  divine  nature,  O  heavenly  nobilitie,  what  thing  can  there 
more  be  required  in  a  Prince  then  in  greatest  power  to  shewe 
greatest  patience,  in  chiefest  glorye  to  bring  forth  chiefest  grace, 
in  abundaunce  of  all  earthlye  pom[p]e  to  manifest  aboundaunce 
of  all  heavenlye  pietie  :  O  fortunate  England  that  hath  such  a 
Queene,  ungratefull,  if  thou  praye  not  for  hir,  wicked,  if  thou  do 
not  love  hir,  miserable,  if  thou  loose  hir. 

Heere,  Ladies,  is  a  Glasse  for  all  Princes  to  behold,  that  being 
called  to  dignitie,  they  use  moderation,  not  might,  tempering  the 
severitie  of  the  lawes  with  the  mildnes  of  love,  not  executing  al[l] 
they  wil,  but  shewing  what  they  may.  Happy  are  they,  and  onely 
they,  that  are  under  this  glorious  and  gracious  Sovereigntie  ;  inso- 
much that  I  accompt  all  those  abjects,  that  be  not  hir  subjectes. 

But  why  doe  I  treade  still  in  one  path,  when  I  have  so  large  a 
fielde  to  walke,  or  lynger  about  one  flower,  when  I  have  manye  to 
gather  :  where-in  I  resemble  those  that,  beeinge  delighted  with  the 
little  brooke,  neglect  the  fountaines  head,  or  that  painter  that, 
being  curious  to  coulour  Cupids  Bow,  forgot  to  paint  the  string. 

As  this  noble  Prince  is  endued  with  mercie,  pacience  and  mod- 
eration, so  is  she  adourned  with  singuler  beautie  and  chastitie, 
excelling  in  the  one  Venus,  in  the  other  Vesta.  Who  knoweth 
not  how  rare  a  thing  it  is  Ladies  to  match  virginitie  with 
beautie,  a  chast[e]  minde  with  an  amiable  face,  divine  cogitations 
with  a  comelye  countenaunce  ?  But  suche  is  the  grace  bestowed 
uppon  this  earthlye  Goddesse,  that,  having  the  beautie  that  myght 
allure  all  Princes,  she  hath  the  chastitie  also  to  refuse  all,  account- 
ing [accompting]  it  no  lesse  praise  to  be  called  a  Virgin,  then  to 
be  esteemed  a  Venus,  thinking  it  as  great  honour  to  bee  found 
chast[e],  as  thought  amiable.  Where  is  now  Electra  the  chast[e] 
Daughter  of  Agamemnon  ?  Where  is  Lala,  that  renoumed  Virgin  ? 
Wher  is  Aemilia,  that  through  hir  chastitie  wrought  wonders,  in 
maintayning  continuall  fire  at  the  Altar  of  Vestat  Where  is 


16  JOHN  LYLY. 

Claudia,  that  to  manifest  hir  virginitie  set  the  Shippe  on  float 
with  hir  finger,  that  multitudes  could  not  remove  by  force? 
Where  is  Tuscia,  one  of  the  same  order,  that  brought  to  passe 
no  lesse  mervailes  by  carrying  water  in  a  sive,  not  shedding  one 
drop  from  Tiber  to  the  Temple  of  Vesta  ?  If  Virginitie  have  such 
force,  then  what  hath  this  chast  Virgin  Elizabeth  don[e],  who  by 
the  space  of  twenty  and  odde  yeares  with  continuall  peace  against 
all  policies,  with  sundry  myracles  contrary  to  all  hope,  hath  gov- 
erned that  noble  Island  ?  Against  whome  neyther  forre[i]n  force, 
nor  civill  fraude,  neyther  discorde  at  home,  nor  conspiracies 
abroad,  could  prevaile.  What  greater  mervaile  hath  happened 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  then  for  a  young  and  tender 
Maiden  to  govern  strong  and  valiaunt  menne,  then  for  a  Virgin  to 
make  the  whole  wo  ride,  if  not  to  stand  in  awe  of  hir,  yet  to  honour 
hir,  yea  and  to  live  in  spight  of  all  those  that  spight  hir,  with  hir 
sword  in  the  she[a]th,  with  hir  armour  in  the  Tower,  with  hir  soul- 
diers  in  their  gownes,  insomuch  as  hir  peace  may  be  called  more 
blessed  then  the  quiet  raigne  of  Numa  Pompilius,  in  whose  gov- 
ernment the  Bees  have  made  their  hives  in  the  soldiers  hel- 
mettes  ?  Now  is  the  Temple  of  Janus  removed  from  Rome  to 
England,  whose  dore  hath  not  bene  opened  this  twentie  yeares, 
more  to  be  mervayled  at  then  the  regiment23  of  Debora,  who 
ruled  twentie  yeares  with  religion,  or  Semeriamis  \_Semyramis~\, 
that  governed  long  with  power,  or  Zenobia,  that  reigned  six  yeares 
in  prosperitie. 

This  is  the  onelye  myracle  that  virginitie  ever  wrought,  for  a 
little  Island  environed  round  about  with  warres  to  stande  in  peace, 
for  the  walles  of  Fraunce  to  burne,  and  the  houses  of  England  to 
freese,  for  all  other  nations  eyther  with  civile  [cruell]  sworde  to 
bee  devided,  or  with  forren  foes  to  be  invaded,  and  that  countrey 
neyther  to  be  molested  with  broyles  in  their  owne  bosomes,  nor 
threatned  with  blasts  of  other  borderers  :  But  alwayes  though  not 
laughing,  yet  looking  through  an  Emeraud  at  others  jarres. 

23  rule. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  17 

Their  fields  have  beene  sowne  with  corne,  straungers  theirs 
pytched  with  Camps ;  they  have  their  men  reaping  their  harvest, 
when  others  are  mustring  in  their  harneis  ;  they  use  their  peeces 
to  fowle  for  pleasure,  others  their  Calivers 2*  for  feare  of  perrill. 
O  blessed  peace,  oh  happy  Prince,  O  fortunate  people  :  The  lyv- 
ing  God  is  onely  the  English  God,  wher[e]  he  hath  placed  peace, 
which  bryngeth  all  plentie,  annoynted  a  Virgin  Queene,  which 
with  a  wand  ruleth  hir  owne  subjects,  and  with  hir  worthinesse 
winneth  the  good  willes  of  straungers,  so  that  she  is  no  lesse  gra- 
tious  among  hir  own,  then  glorious  to  others,  no  lesse  loved  of  hir 
people,  then  merva[i]led  at  of  other  nations. 

This  is  the  blessing  that  Christ  alwayes  gave  to  his  people, 
peace  :  This  is  the  curse  that  hee  giveth  to  the  wicked,  there 
shall  bee  no  peace  to  the  ungodlye  :  This  was  the  onely  salutation 
hee  used  to  his  Disciples,  peace  be  unto  you  :  And  therefore  is  hee 
called  the  G  O  D  of  love,  and  peace  in  hollye  [holy]  writte. 

In  peace  was  the  Temple  of  the  Lorde  buylt  by  Salomon,  Christ 
would  not  be  borne  untill  there  were  peace  through- out  the  whole 
worlde,  this  was  the  only  thing  that  Esechias  prayed  for,  let  there 
be  trueth  and  peace,  O  Lorde,  in  my  dayes.  All  which  examples 
doe  manifestly  prove,  that  ther[e]  can  be  nothing  given  of  God  to 
man  more  notable  than  peace. 

This  peace  hath  the  Lorde  continued  with  great  and  unspeake- 
able  goodnesse  amonge  his  chosen  people  of  England.  How 
much  is  that  nation  bounde  to  such  a  Prince,  by  whome  they 
enjoye  all  benefits  of  peace,  having  their  barnes  full,  when  others 
famish,  their  cof[f]ers  stuffed  with  gold,  when  others  have  no 
silver,  their  wives  without  daunger,  when  others  are  defamed,  their 
daughters  chast,  when  others  are  defloured,  theyr  houses  furnished, 
when  others  are  fired,  where  they  have  all  thinges  for  superfluitie, 
others  nothing  to  sustaine  their  neede.  This  peace  hath  God 
given  for  hir  vertues,  pittie,  moderation,  virginitie,  which  peace, 
the  same  God  of  peace  continue  for  his  names  sake. 

24  muskets. 


18  JOHN  LYLY. 

Touching  the  beautie  of  this  Prince,  hir  countenaunce,  hir  per- 
sonage, hir  majestic,  I  can-not  thinke  that  it  may  be  sufficiently 
commended,  when  it  can-not  be  too  much  mervailed  at :  So  that 
I  am  constrained  to  saye  as  Praxitiles  did,  when  hee  beganne  to 
paynt  Venus  and  hir  Sonne,  who  doubted  whether  the  worlde 
could  affoorde  coulours  good  enough  for  two  such  fayre  faces,  and 
I  whether  our  tongue  canne  yeelde  wordes  to  blase  that  beautie, 
the  perfection  where-of  none  canne  imagine,  which  seeing  it  is  so, 
I  must  doe  like  those  that  want  a  cleere  sight,  who  being  not  able 
to  discerne  the  Sunne  in  the  Skie  are  inforced  to  beholde  it  in 
the  water.  Zeuxis  having  before  him  fiftie  faire  virgins  of  Sparta 
where  by  to  draw  one  amiable  Venus,  said  that  fiftie  more  fayrer 
then  those  coulde  not  minister  sufficient  beautie  to  shewe  the 
Godesse  of  beautie ;  therefore  being  in  dispaire  either  by  art  to 
shadow  hir,  or  by  imagination  to  comprehend  hir,  he  drew  in  a 
table  a  faire  temple,  the  gates  open,  and  Venus  going  in,  so  as 
nothing  coulde  be  perceived  but  hir  backe,  wherein  he  used  such 
cunning  that  Appelles  himselfe  seeing  this  worke,  wished  yat  Venus 
woulde  turne  hir  face,  saying  yat  if  it  were  in  all  partes  agreeable 
to  the  backe,  he  woulde  become  apprentice  to  Zeuxis,  and  slave 
to  Venus.  In  the  like  manner  fareth  it  with  me,  for  having  all  the 
Ladyes  in  Italy  more  than  fiftie  hundered,  whereby  to  coulour 
Elizabeth,  I  must  say  with  Zeuxis,  that  as  many  more  will  not 
suffise,  and  therefore  in  as  great  an  agonie  paint  hir  court  with  hir 
back  towards  you,  for  yat  I  cannot  by  art  portraie  hir  beautie, 
wherein  though  I  want  the  skill  to  doe  it  as  Zeuxis  did,  yet  v[i]ew- 
ing  it  narrowly,  and  comparing  it  wisely,  you  all  will  say  yat  if  hir 
face  be  aunswerable  to  hir  backe,  you  wil[l]  like  my  handi-crafte, 
and  become  hir  handmaides.  In  the  meane  season  I  leave  you 
gazing  untill  she  turne  hir  face,  imagining  hir  to  be  such  a  one  as 
nature  framed  to  yat  end,  that  no  art  should  imitate,  wherein  shee 
hath  proved  hir  selfe  to  bee  exquisite,  and  painters  to  be  Apes. 

This  Beautifull  moulde  when  I  behelde  to  be  endued  with  chas- 
titie,  temperance,  mildnesse,  and  all  other  good  giftes  of  nature 
(as  hereafter  shall  appeare)  when  I  saw  hir  to  surpasse  all  in 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  19 

beautie,  and  yet  a  virgin,  to  excell  all  in  pietie,  and  yet  a  prince, 
to  be  inferiour  to  none  in  all  the  liniaments  of  the  bodie,  and  yet 
superiour  to  every  one  in  all  giftes  of  the  minde,  I  beegan  thus  to 
pray,  that  as  she  hath  lived  fortie  yeares  a  virgin  in  great  majestic, 
so  she  may  lyve  fourescore  yeares  a  mother  with  great  joye,  that 
as  with  hir  we  have  long  time  hadde  peace  and  plentie,  so  by  hir 
we  may  ever  have  quietnesse  and  aboundaunce,' wishing  this  even 
from  the  bottome  of  a  heart  that  wisheth  well  to  England,  though 
feareth  ill,  that  either  the  world  may  ende  before  she  dye,  or  she 
lyve  to  see  hir  childrens  children  in  the  world  :  otherwise,  how 
tickle  K  their  state  is  yat  now  triumph,  upon  what  a  twist  they  hang 
that  now  are  in  honour,  they  yat  lyve  shal  see  which  I  to  thinke 
on  sigh.  But  God  for  his  mercies  sake,  Christ  for  his  merits  sake, 
ye  holy  Ghost  for  his  names  sake,  graunt  to  that  realme  comfort 
without  anye  ill  chaunce,  and  the  Prince  they  have  without  any 
other  chaunge,  that  ye  longer  she  liveth  the  sweeter  she  may 
smell,  lyke  the  bird  Ibis,  that  she  maye  be  triumphant  in  victories 
lyke  the  Palme  tree,  fruitfull  in  hir  age  lyke  the  Vyne,  in  all  ages 
prosperous,  to  all  men  gratious,  in  all  places  glorious  :  so  that 
there  be  no  ende  of  hir  praise,  untill  the  ende  of  all  flesh. 

Thus  did  I  often  talke  with  my  selfe,  and  wishe  with  mine  whole 
soule  [heart]. 

What  should  I  talke  of  hir  sharpe  wit,  excellent  wisdome,  exqui- 
site learning,  and  all  other  qualities  of  the  minde,  where-in  she 
seemeth  as  farre  to  excell  those  that  have  bene  accompted  singu- 
lar, as  the  learned  have  surpassed  those  that  have  bene  thought 
simple? 

In  questioning  not  inferiour  to  Nicaulia  the  Queene  of  Saba, 
that  did  put  so  many  hard  doubts  to  Salomon,  equall  to  Nico- 
strata  in  the  Greeke  tongue,  who  was  thought  to  give  precepts  for 
the  better  perfection  :  more  learned  in  the  Latine  then  Amala- 
sunta :  passing  Aspasia  in  Philosophic,  who  taught  Pericles : 
exceeding  in  judgement  Themistoclea,  who  instructed  Pithagoras, 

25  unsteady. 


20  -  JOHN  LYLY. 

adde  to  these  qualyties  those  that  none  of  these  had,  the  French 
tongue,  the  Spanish,  the  Italian,  not  meane  in  every  one,  but 
excellent  in  all,  readyer  to  correct  escapes26  in  those  languages, 
then  to  be  controlled,  fitter  to  teach  others,  then  learne  of  anye, 
more  able  to  adde  new  rules,  then  to  err  in  ye  olde  :  Insomuch 
as  there  is  no  Embassadour  that  commeth  into  hir  court,  but  she 
is  willing  and  able  both  to  understand  his  message,  and  utter  hir 
minde,  not  lyke  unto  ye  Kings  of  Assiria,  who  aunswere[d]  Em- 
bassades  by  messengers,  while  they  themselves  either  dally  in 
sinne,  or  snort  in  sleepe.  Hir  godly  zeale  to  learning,  with  hir 
great  skil,  hath  bene  so  manifestly  approved,  yat  I  cannot  tell 
whether  she  deserve  more  honour  for  hir  knowledge,  or  admiration 
for  hir  curtesie,  who  in  great  pompe  hath  twice  directed  hir  Prog- 
resse  unto  the  Universities,  with  no  lesse  joye  to  the  Students  then 
glory  to  hir  State.  Where,  after  long  and  solempne  disputations 
in  Law,  Phisicke,  and  Divinitie,  not  as  one  we[a]ried  with  Schol- 
lers  arguments,  but  wedded  to  their  orations,  when  every  one 
feared  to  offend  in  length,  she  in  hir  own  person,  with  no  lesse 
praise  to  hir  Majestic,  then  delight  to  hir  subjects,  with  a  wise  and 
learned  conclusion,  both  gave  them  thankes,  and  put  selfe27  to 
paines.  O  noble  patterne.  of  a  princelye  minde,  not  like  to  ye 
kings  of  Persia,  who  in  their  progresses  did  nothing  els  but  cut 
stickes  to  drive  away  the  time,  nor  like  ye  delicate  lives  of  the 
Sybar-ites,  who  would  not  admit  any  Art  to  be  exercised  within 
their  citie,  yat  might  make  ye  least  noyse.  Hir  wit  so  sharp,  that 
if  I  should  repeat  the  apt  aunsweres,  ye  subtil  questions,  ye  fine 
speaches,  ye  pithie  sentences,  which  on  ye  sodain  she  hath  uttered, 
they  wold  rather  breed  admiration  then  credit.  But  such  are  ye 
gifts  yat  ye  living  God  hath  indued  hir  with-all,  that  Looke  in  what 
Arte  or  Language,  wit  or  learning,  vertue  or  beautie,  any  one  hath 
particularly  excelled  most,  she  onely  hath  generally  exceeded  every 
one  in  al,  insomuch  that  there  is  nothing  to  bee  added,  that  either 
man  would  wish  in  a  woman,  or  God  doth  give  to  a  creature. 

26  mistakes.  v  herself:  perhaps  hir  omitted  in  Arber's  text. 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  21 

I  let  passe  hir  skill  in  Musicke,  hir  knowledg[e]  in  al[l]  ye  other 
sciences,  when  as  I  feare  least  by  my  simplicity  I  shoulde  make 
them  lesse  then  they  are,  in  seeking  to  shewe  howe  great  they  are, 
unlesse  I  were  praising  hir  in  the  gallerie  of  Olympia,  where  gyv- 
ing forth  one  worde,  I  might  heare  seven. 

But  all  these  graces28  although  they  be  to  be  wondered  at,  yet  hir 
politique  governement,  hir  prudent  counsaile,  hir  zeale  to  religion, 
hir  clemencie  to  those  that  submit,  hir  stoutnesse  to  those  that 
threaten,  so  farre  exceede  all  other  vertues  that  they  are  more 
easie  to  be  mervailed  at  then  imitated. 

Two  and  twentie  yeares  hath  she  borne  the  sword  with  such 
justice  that  neither  offenders  coulde  complaine  of  rigour,  nor  the 
innocent  of  wrong,  yet  so  tempered  with  mercie,  as  malefactours 
have  beene  sometimes  pardoned  upon  hope  of  grace,  and  the 
injured  requited  to  ease  their  griefe,  insomuch  that  in  ye  whole 
course  of  hir  glorious  raigne,  it  coulde  never  be  saide  that  either 
the  poore  were  oppressed  without  remedie,  or  the  guiltie  repressed 
without  cause,  bearing  this  engraven  in  hir  noble  heart,  that  justice 
without  mercie  were  extreame  injurie,  and  pittie  without  equitie 
plaine  partialitie,  and  that  it  is  as  great  tyranny  not  to  mitigate 
Laws  as  iniquitie  to  breake  them. 

Hir  care  for  the  flourishing  of  the  Gospell  hath  wel  appeared, 
whenas  neither  the  curses  of  the  Pope,  (which  are  blessings  to 
good  people)  nor  the  threatenings  of  kings,  (which  are  perillous 
to  a  Prince)  nor  the  perswasions  of  Papists  (which  are  Honny  to 
the  mouth)  could  either  feare29  hir,  or  allure  hir,  to  violate  the 
holy  league  contracted  with  Christ,  or  to  maculate  the  blood  of 
the  aunciente  Lambe,  whiche  is  Christ.  But  alwayes  constaunt  in 
the  true  fayth,  she  hath  to  the  exceeding  joye  of  hir  subjectes,  to 
the  unspeakeable  comforte  of  hir  soule,  to  the  great  glorye  of  God, 
establyshed  that  religion,  the  mayntenance  where-of  shee  rather 
seeketh  to  confirme  by  fortitude,  then  leave  off  for  feare,  knowing 
that  there  is  nothing  that  smelleth  sweeter  to  the  Lorde  then  a 

28  No  predicate  for  this  subject.  29  frighten. 


22  JOHN  LYLY. 

sounde  spirite,  which  neyther  the  hostes  of  the  ungodlye,  nor  the 
horror  of  death,  can  eyther  remo[o]ve  or  move. 

This  Gospell  with  invincible  courage,  with  rare  constancie,  with 
hotte  zeale  shee  hath  maintained  in  hir  owne  countries  without 
chaunge,  and  defended  against  all  kingdomes  that  sought  chaunge, 
in-somuch  that  all  nations  rounde  about  hir,  threatninge  alteration, 
shaking  swordes,  throwing  fyre,  menacing  famyne,  murther,  destruc- 
tion, desolation,  shee  onely  hath  stoode  like  a  Lampe  [Lambe]  on 
the  toppe  of  a  hill,  not  fearing  the  blastes  of  the  sharpe  winds,  but 
trusting  in  his  providence  that  rydeth  uppon  the  winges  of  the 
foure  windes.  Next  followeth  the  love  shee  beareth  to  hir  sub- 
jectes,  who  no  lesse  tendereth  them  then  the  apple  of  hir  owne 
eye,  shewing  hir  selfe  a  mother  to  the  a[fjflicted,  a  Phisition  to 
the  sicke,  a  Sovereigne  and  mylde  Governesse  to  all. 

Touchinge  hir  Magnanimitie,  hir  Majestic,  hir  Estate  royall, 
there  was  neyther  Alexander,  nor  Galba  the  Emperour,  nor  any 
that  might  be  compared  with  hir. 

This  is  she  that,  resembling  the  noble  Queene  of  Navarr\e\, 
useth  the  Marigolde  for  hir  flower,  which  at  the  rising  of  the  Sunne 
openeth  hir  leaves,  and  at  the  setting  shutteth  them,  referring  all 
hir  actions  and  endevours  to  him  that  ruleth  the  Sunne.  This  is 
that  Ccesar  that  first  bound  the  Crocodile  to  the  Palme  tree,  bri- 
dling those  that  sought  to  raine  [rayne]  hir :  This  is  that  good 
Pelican  that  to  feede  hir  people  spareth  not  to  rend  hir  owne  per- 
sonne  :  This  is  that  mightie  Eagle,  that  hath  throwne  dust  into  the 
eyes  of  the  Hart,  that  went  about  to  worke  destruction  to  hir 
subjectes,  into  whose  winges  although  the  blinde  Beetle  would 
have  crept,  and  so  being  carryed  into  hir  nest,  destroyed  hir  young 
ones,  yet  hath  she  with  the  vertue  of  hir  fethers,  consumed  that 
flye  in  his  owne  fraud. 

She  hath  exiled  the  Swallowe  that  sought  to  spoyle  the  Gras- 
hopper,  and  given  bytter  Almondes  to  the  ravenous  Wolves  that 
ende[a]vored  to  devoure  the  silly  Lambes,  burning  even  with  the 
breath  of  hir  mouth  like  ye  princ[e]ly  Stag,  the  serpents  yat  wer[e] 
engendred  by  the  breath  of  the  huge  Elephant,  so  that  now  all  hir 


EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.  23 

enimies  are  as  whist30  as  the  bird  Attagen,  who  never  singeth  any 
tune  after  she  is  taken,  nor  they  beeing  so  overtaken. 

But  whether  do  I  wade,  Ladyes,  as  one  forgetting  him-selfe, 
thinking  to  sound  the  dep[t]h  of  hir  vertues  with  a  few  fadomes, 
when  there  is  no  bottome  :  For  I  knowe  not  how  it  commeth  to 
passe  that,  being  in  this  Laborinth,  I  may  sooner  loose  my  selfe 
then  finde  the  ende. 

Beholde,  Ladyes,  in  this  Glasse  a  Queene,  a  woeman,  a  Virgin  in 
all  giftes  of  the  bodye,  in  all  graces  of  the  minde,  in  all  perfection 
of  eyther,  so  farre  to  excell  all  men,  that  I  know  not  whether  I 
may  thinke  the  place  too  badde  for  hir  to  dwell  amonge  men. 

To  talke  of  other  thinges  in  that  Court,  wer[e]  to  bring  Egges 
after  apples,  or  after  the  setting  out  of  the  Sunne,  to  tell  a  tale  of 
a  Shaddow. 

But  this  I  saye,  that  all  offyces  are  looked  to  with  great  care, 
that  vertue  is  embraced  of19  all,  vice  hated,  religion  daily  encreased, 
manners  reformed,  that  who  so  seeth  the  place  there,  will  thinke 
it  rather  a  Church  for  divine  service,  then  a  Court  for  Princes 
delight. 

This  is  the  Glasse,  Ladies,  wher-in  I  woulde  have  you  gase, 
wher-in  I  tooke  my  whole  delight;  imitate  the  Ladyes  in  England, 
amende  your  manners,  rubbe  out  the  wrinckles  of  the  minde,  and 
be  not  curious  about  the  weams31  in  the  face.  As  for  their  Eliz- 
abeth, sith32  you  can  neyther  sufficiently  mervaile  at  hir,  nor  I  prayse 
hir,  let  us  all  pray  for  hir,  which  is  the  onely  duetie  we  can  per- 
forme,  and  the  greatest  that  we  can  proffer. 

Yours  to  commaund 

Euphues. 

30  still.  31  blemishes.  82  since. 


II. 

SIR    PHILIP   SIDNEY. 

(1554—1586.) 

AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE. 

[Written  about  1581.] 

SITH  l  then  Poetrie  is  of  all  humane  learning  the  most  auncient, 
and  of  most  fatherly  antiquitie,  as  from  whence  other  learnings 
have  taken  theyr  beginnings  :  sith  it  is  so  universall  that  no  learned 
Nation  dooth  despise  it,  nor  no  barbarous  Nation  is  without  it : 
sith  both  Roman  and  Greek  gave  divine  names  unto  it :  the  one 
of  prophecying,  the  other  of  making.  And  that,  indeede,  that 
name  of  making  is  fit  for  him ;  considering  that,  where  as  other 
Arts  retaine  themselves  within  their  subject,  and  receive,  as  it 
were,  their  beeing  from  it :  the  Poet  onely  bringeth  his  owne  stuffe, 
and  dooth  not  learne  a  conceite2  out  of  a  matter,  but  maketh 
matter  for  a  conceite  :  Sith  neither  his  description,  nor  his  ende, 
contayneth  any  evill,  the  thing  described  cannot  be  evill :  Sith  his 
effects  be  so  good  as  to  teach  goodness  and  to  delight  the  learners  : 
Sith  therein,  (namely  in  morrall  doctrine,  the  chiefe  of  all  knowl- 
edges,) hee  dooth  not  onely  farre  passe  the  Historian,  but  for 
instructing  is  well  nigh  comparable  to  the  Philosopher :  and  for 
moving  leaves  him  behind  him  :  Sith  the  holy  scripture  (wherein 
there  is  no  uncleannes)  hath  whole  parts  in  it  poeticall.  And  that 
even  our  Saviour  Christ  vouchsafed  to  use  the  flowers  of  it :  Sith 
all  his  kindes  are  not  onlie  in  their  united  formes,  but  in  their 
severed  dissections  fully  commendable,  I  think,  (and  think  I 

1  since.  2  idea. 

24 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  25 

thinke  rightly)  the  Lawrell  crowne  appointed  for  tryumphing  Cap- 
taines  doth  worthilie  (of  al  other3  learnings)  honor  the  Poets 
tryumph.  But  because  wee  have  eares  aswell  as  tongues,  and 
that  the  lightest  reasons  that  may  be,  will  seeme  to  weigh  greatly, 
if  nothing  be  put  in  the  counter-ballance  :  let  us  heare,  and 
aswell  as  wee  can,  ponder  what  objections  may  bee  made  against 
this  Arte,  which  may  be  worthy,  eyther  of  yeelding,  or  answering. 

First  truely  I  note,  not  onely  in  these  Mysonwusoi,  Poet-haters, 
but  in  all  that  kinde  of  people,  who  seek  a  prayse  by  dispraysing 
others,  that  they  doe  prodigally  spend  a  great  many  wandering 
wordes  in  quips  and  scoffes ;  carping  and  taunting  at  each  thing, 
which  by  styrring  the  Spleene,  may  stay  the  braine  from  a  through 
beholding  the  worthines  of  the  subject. 

Those  kinde3  of  objections,  as  they  are  full  of  very  idle  easines, 
sith  there  is  nothing  of  so  sacred  a  majestic,  but  that  an  itching 
tongue  may  rubbe  it  selfe  upon  it :  so  deserve  they  no  other 
answer,  but  in  steed  of  laughing  at  the  jest,  to  laugh  at  the  jester. 
Wee  know  a  playing  wit  can  prayse  the  discretion  of  an  Asse,  the 
comfortablenes  of  being  in  debt,  and  the  jolly  commoditie4  of 
beeing  sick  of  the  plague.  So  of  the  contrary  side,  if  we  will  turne 
Ovids  verse, 

Ut  lateat  virtus  proximitate  malt? 

that  good  lye  hid  in  the  neerenesse  of  the  evill :  Agrippa  will  be 
as  merry  in  shewing  the  vanitie  of  Science,  as  Erasmus  was  in 
commending  of  follie.  Neyther  shall  any  man  or  matter  escape 
some  touch  of  these  smyling  raylers.  But  for  Erasmus  and 
Agrippa,  they  had  another  foundation  then  the  superficiall  part 
would  promise.  Mary,  these  other  pleasant  Fault-finders,  who 
wil  correct  the  Verbe  before  they  understande  the  Noune,  and 
confute  others  knowledge  before  they  confirme  theyr  owne  :  I 
would  have  them  onely  remember  that  scoffing  commeth  not  of 

8  Common  phrase  in  Elizabethan  English,  though  incorrect. 
4  advantage. 

6  Possibly  after  Ovid's  Art  of  Love,  II.  662 :  Et  lateat  vitium  proximitate 
boni,  And  vice  may  lie  hid  in  the  nearness  of  good. 


26  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

wisedom.  So  as  the  best  title  in  true  English  they  gette  with 
their  merriments,  is  to  be  called  good  fooles  :  for  so  have  our 
grave  Fore-fathers  ever  termed  that  humorous  kinde  of  jesters  : 
but  that  which  gyveth  greatest  scope  to  their  scorning  humors, 
is  ryming  and  versing.  It  is  already  sayde  (and  as  I  think,  trulie 
sayde)  it  is  not  ryming  and  versing  that  maketh  Poesie.  One  may 
bee  a  Poet  without  versing,  and  a  versifier  without  Poetry.  But 
yet,  presuppose  it  were  inseparable  (as  indeede  it  seemeth  Scaliger 
judgeth)  truelie  it  were  an  inseparable  commendation.  For  if 
Oratio,  next  to  Ratio,  Speech  next  to  Reason,  bee  the  greatest 
gyft  bestowed  upon  mortalitie  :  that  can  not  be  praiselesse,  which 
dooth  most  pollish  that  blessing  of  speech,  which  considers  each 
word,  not  only  (as  a  man  may  say)  by  his  forcible  qualitie,  but  by 
his  best  measured  quantitie,  carrying  even  in  themselves  a  Har- 
monic :  (without7  (perchaunce)  Number,  Measure,  Order,  Pro- 
portion, be  in  our  time  growne  odious.)  But  lay  a  side  the  just 
prayse  it  hath,  by  beeing  the  onely  fit  speech  for  Musick,  (Musick 
I  say,  the  most  divine  striker  of  the  sences  :)  thus  much  is  un- 
doubtedly true,  that  if  reading  bee  foolish  without  remembring, 
memorie  being  the  onely  treasurer  of  knowled[g]e,  those  words 
which  are  fittest  for  memory  are  likewise  most  convenient  for 
knowledge. 

Now,  that  Verse  farre  exceedeth  Prose  in  the  knitting  up  of  the 
memory,  the  reason  is  manifest.  The  words,  (besides  theyr  delight 
which  hath  a  great  affinitie  to  memory,)  beeing  so  set,  as  one 
word  cannot  be  lost,  but  the  whole  worke  failes  :  which  accuseth 
it  selfe,  calleth  the  remembrance  backe  to  it  selfe,  and  so  most 
strongly  confirmeth  it ;  besides,  one  word  so  as  it  were  begetting 
another,  as  be  it  in  ryme  or  measured  verse,  by  the  former  a  man 
shall  have  a  neere  guesse  to  the  follower :  lastly,  even  they  that 
have  taught  the  Art  of  memory,  have  shewed  nothing  so  apt  for 
it  as  a  certaine  roome  devided  into  many  places  well  and  thor- 
oughly knowne.  Now,  that  hath  the  verse  in  effect  perfectly  : 
every  word  having  his  naturall  seate,  which  seate  must  needes 
make  the  words  remembred.  But  what  needeth  more  in  a  thing 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  27 

so  knowne  to  all  men?  who  is  it  that  ever  was  a  scholler,  that 
doth  not  carry  away  some  verses  of  Virgill,  Horace,  or  Cato,  which 
in  his  youth  he  learned,  and  even  to  his  old  age  serve  him  for 
howrely  lessons?  but  the  fitnes  it  hath  for  memory,  is  notably 
proved  by  all  delivery  of  Arts :  wherein  for  the  most  part,  from 
Grammer,  to  Logick,  Mathematick,  Phisick,  and  the  rest,  the 
rules  chiefely  necessary  to  bee  borne  away  are  compiled  in  verses. 
So  that,  verse  being  in  it  selfe  sweete  and  orderly,  and  beeing  best 
for  memory,  the  onely  handle  of  knowledge,  it  must  be  in  jest  that 
any  man  can  speake  against  it.  Nowe  then  goe  wee  to  the  most 
important  imputations  laid  to  the  poore  Poets,  for  ought  I  can 
yet  learne  they  are  these,  first,  that  there  beeing  many  other  more 
fruitefull  knowledges,  a  man  might  better  spend  his  tyme  in  them, 
then  in  this.  Secondly,  that  it  is  the  mother  of  lyes.  Thirdly, 
that  it  is  the  Nurse  of  abuse,  infecting  us  with  many  pestilent 
desires  :  with  a  Syrens  sweetness  drawing  the  mind  to  the  Ser- 
pents tayle  of  sinful  fancy.  And  heerein  especially  Comedies  give 
the  largest  field  to  erre,*  as  Chaucer  sayth  :  howe  both  in  other 
Nations  and  in  ours,  before  Poets  did  soften  us,  we  were  full  of 
courage,  given  to  martiall  exercises  ;  the  pillars  of  manlyke  liberty, 
and  not  lulled  a  sleepe  in  shady  idlenes  with  Poets  pastimes. 
And  lastly,  and  chiefely,  they  cry  out  with  an  open  mouth,  as  if 
they  out  shot  Robin  Hood,  that  Plato  banished  them  out  of  hys 
Common-wealth.  Truely,  this  is  much,  if  there  be  much  truth  in 
it.  First  to  the  first :  that  a  man  might  better  spend  his  tyme,  is 
a  reason  indeede  :  but  it  doth  (as  they  say)  but  Petere  princi- 
piurn6:  for  if  it  be  as  I  affirme,  that  no  learning  is  so  good  as 
that  which  teacheth  and  mooveth  to  vertue  ;  and  that  none  can 
both  teach  and  move  thereto  so  much  as  Poetry :  then  is  the 
conclusion  manifest  that  Incke  and  Paper  cannot  be  to  a  more 
profitable  purpose  employed.  And  certainly,  though  a  man  should 
graunt  their  first  assumption,  it  should  followe  (me  thinkes) 
very  unwillingly  that  good  is  not  good,  because  better  is  better. 

*  ear,  i.e.,  plough.  6  Beg  the  question. 


28  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

But  I  still  and  utterly  denye  that  there  is  sprong  out  of  earth  a 
more  fruiteful  knowledge.  To  the  second  therefore,  that  they 
should  be  the  principall  lyars ;  I  aunsvvere  paradoxically,  but 
truely,  I  thinke  truely ;  that  of  all  Writers  under  the  sunne,  the 
Poet  is  the  least  Her  :  and  though  he  would,  as  a  Poet  can  scarcely 
be  a  Iyer,  the  Astronomer,  with  his  cosen  the  Geometrician,  can 
hardly  escape,  when  they  take  upon  them  to  measure  the  height 
of  the  starres. 

How  often,  thinke  you,  doe  the  Phisitians  lye,  when  they  aver 
things  good  for  sicknesses,  which  afterwards  send  Charon  a  great 
nomber  of  soules  drown[e]d  in  a  potion  before  they  come  to  his 
Ferry  ?  And  no  lesse  of  the  rest  which  take  upon  them  to  affirme. 
Now,  for  the  Poet,  he  nothing  affirm es,  and  therefore  never  lyeth. 
For,  as  I  take  it,  to  lye  is  to  affirme  that  to  be  true  which  is  false. 
So  as  the  other  Artists,  and  especially  the  Historian,  affirming 
many  things,  can  in  the  cloudy  knowledge  of  mankinde  hardly 
escape  from  many  lyes.  But  the  Poet  (as  I  sayd  before)  never 
affirmeth.  The  Poet  never  maketh  any  circles  about  your  imagi- 
nation, to  conjure  you  to  beleeve  for  true  what  he  writes.  Hee 
citeth  not  authorities  of  other  Histories,  but  even  for  hys  entry 
calleth  the  sweete  Muses  to  inspire  into  him  a  good  invention :  in 
troth,  not  labouring  to  tell  you  what  is,  or  is  not,  but  what  should 
or  should  not  be  :  and  therefore,  though  he  recount  things  not 
true,  yet  because  hee  telleth  them  not  for  true,  he  lyeth  not, 
without 7  we  will  say,  that  Nathan  lyed  in  his  speech  before 
alledged  to  David.  Which  as  a  wicked  man  durst  scarce  say,  so 
think  I,  none  so  simple  would  say  that  Esope  lyed  in  the  tales  of 
his  beasts  :  for  who  thinks  that  Esope  writ  it  for  actually  true, 
were  well  worthy  to  have  his  name  c[h]ronicled  among  the  beastes 
hee  writeth  of. 

What  childe  is  there  that,  comming  to  a  Play,  and  seeing  Thebes 
written  in  great  Letters  upon  an  olde  doore,  doth  beleeve  that  it 
is  Thebes  ?  If  then,  a  man  can  arrive  at  that  childs  age,  to  know 

7  Use  of  without  as  conjunction,  now  incorrect. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  29 

that  the  Poets  persons  and  dooings  are  but  pictures  what  should 
be,  and  not  stories  what  have  beene,  they  will  never  give  the  lye 
to  things  not  affirmatively,  but  allegorically,  and  figurativelie  writ- 
ten. And  therefore,  as  in  Historic,  looking  for  trueth,  they  goe 
away  full  fraught  with  falshood  :  so  in  Poesie,  looking  for  fiction, 
they  shal  use  the  narration  but  as  an  imaginative  groundplot  of  a 
profitable  invention. 

But  heereto  is  replyed,  that  the  Poets  gyve  names  to  men 
they  write  of,  which  argueth  a  conceite  of  an  actuall  truth,  and  so, 
not  being  true,  prooves  a  falshood.  And  doth  the  Lawyer  lye 
then,  when  under  the  names  of  John  a  stile  and  John  a  noakes, 
hee  puts  his  case  ?  But  that  is  easily  answered.  Theyr  naming 
of  men  is  but  to  make  theyr  picture  the  more  lively,  and  not  to 
builde  any  historic  :  paynting  men,  they  cannot  leave  men  name- 
lesse.  We  see  we  cannot  play  at  Chesse,  but  that  wee  must  give 
names  to  our  Chesse-men ;  and  yet  mee  thinks,  hee  were  a  very 
partiall  Champion  of  truth,  that  would  say  we  lyed  for  giving  a 
peece  of  wood  the  reverend  title  of  a  Bishop.  The  Poet  nameth 
Cyrus  or  Aeneas  no  other  way  than  to  shewe  what  men  of  theyr 
fames,  fortunes,  and  estates,  should  doe. 

Their  third  is,  how  much  it  abuseth  mens  wit,  trayning  it  to 
wanton  sinfulnes,  and  lustfull  love  :  for  indeed  that  is  the  prin- 
cipal!, if  not  the  onely,  abuse  I  can  heare  alledged.  They  say,  the 
Comedies  rather  teach,  then  reprehend,  amorous  conceits.  They 
say,  the  Lirick  is  larded  with  passionate  Sonnets.  The  Elegiack 
weepes  the  want  of  his  mistresse.  And  that  even  to  the  Heroical, 
Ctipid  hath  ambitiously  climed.  Alas,  Love,  I  would  thou  couldest 
as  well  defende  thy  selfe,  as  thou  canst  offende  others.  I  would 
those,  on  whom  thou  doost  attend,  could  eyther  put  thee  away, 
or  yeelde  good  reason  why  they  keepe  thee.  But  grant  love  of 
beautie  to  be  a  beastlie  fault,  (although  it  be  very  hard,  sith  onely 
man,  and  no  beast,  hath  that  gyft,  to  discerne  beauty.)  Grant 
that  lovely  name  of  Love  to  deserve  all  hateful  reproches : 
(although  even  some  of  my  Maisters  the  Phylosophers,  spent  a 
good  deale  of  their  Lamp-oyle,  in  setting  foorth  the  excellencie 


30  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

of  it.)  Grant,  I  say,  what  soever  they  wil  have  granted ;  that 
not  onely  love,  but  lust,  but  vanitie,  but  (if  they  list)  scurrilitie, 
possesseth  many  leaves  of  the  Poets  bookes  :  yet  thinke  I,  when 
this  is  granted,  they  will  finde  theyr  sentence  may  with  good 
manners,  put  the  last  words  foremost :  and  not  say  that  Poetrie 
abuseth  mans  wit,  but  that  mans  wit  abuseth  Poetrie. 

For  I  will  not  denie  but  that  mans  wit  may  make  Poesie, 
(which  should  be  Eikastike*  which  some  learned  have  defined, 
figuring  foorth  good  things,)  to  be  Phantastike'* :  which  doth  con- 
trariwise, infect  the  fancie  with  unworthy  objects.  As  the  Painter, 
that  shoulde  give  to  the  eye  eyther  some  excellent  perspective,  or 
some  fine  picture,  fit  for  building  or  fortification :  or  contayning 
in  it  some  notable  example,  as  Abraham,  sacrificing  his  sonne 
Isaack,  Judith  killing  Holof ernes,  David  fighting  with  Goliah,  may 
leave  those,  and  please  an  ill-pleased  eye,  with  wanton  shewes  of 
better  hidden  matters.  But  what,  shall  the  abuse  of  a  thing  make 
the  right  use  odious?  Nay  truely,  though  I  yeeld  that  Poesie  may 
not  onely  be  abused,  but  that  beeing  abused,  by  the  reason  of  his 
sweete  charming  force,  it  can  doe  more  hurt  than  any  other  Armie 
of  words  :  yet  shall  it  be  so  far  from  concluding  that  the  abuse 
should  give  reproch  to  the  abused,  that  contrariwise  it  is  a  good 
reason,  that  whatsoever  being  abused,  dooth  most  harme,  beeing 
rightly  used,  (and  upon  the  right  use  each  thing  conceiveth  his 
title)  doth  most  good. 

Doe  wee  not  see  the  skill  of  Phisick,  (the  best  rampire10  to  our 
often-assaulted  bodies)  beeing  abused,  teach  poyson  the  most 
violent  destroyer?  Dooth  not  knowledge  of  Law,  whose  end  is 
to  even  and  right  all  things,  being  abused,  grow  the  crooked  fos- 
terer of  horrible  injuries?  Doth  not  (to  goe  to  the  highest)  Gods 
word  abused,  breed  heresie?  and  his  Name  abused,  become  blas- 
phemie?  Truely,  a  needle  cannot  doe  much  hurt,  and  as  truely, 
(with  leave  of  Ladies  be  it  spoken)  it  cannot  doe  much  good. 
With  a  sword,  thou  maist  kill  thy  Father,  and  with  a  sword  thou 

8  representative  or  imitative.  9  imaginative.  10  defence. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETKIE.  31 

maist  defende  thy  Prince  and  Country.  So  that,  as  in  their 
calling  Poets  the  Fathers  of  lyes,  they  say  nothing :  so  in  this 
theyr  argument  of  abuse,  they  proove  the  commendation. 

They  alledge  heere-with,  that  before  Poets  beganne  to  be  in 
price,  our  Nation  hath  set  their  harts  delight  upon  action,  and 
not  upon  imagination  :  rather  doing  things  worthy  to  bee  written, 
than  writing  things  fitte  to  be  done.  What  that  before  tyme  was, 
I  thinke  scarcely  Sphinx  can  tell :  Sith  no  memory  is  so  auncient 
that  hath  the  precedence  of  Poetrie.  And  certaine  it  is,  that  in 
our  plainest  homelines,  yet  never  was  the  Albion  Nation  without 
Poetrie.  Mary,  thys  argument,  though  it  bee  leaveld  against 
Poetrie,  yet  is  it,  indeed,  a  chaine-shot  against  all  learning,  or 
bookishnes,  as  they  commonly  tearme  it.  Of  such  minde  were 
certaine  Gothes,  of  whom  it  is  written,  that  having  in  the  spoile 
of  a  famous  Citie,  taken  a  fayre  librarie  :  one  hangman  (bee-like 
fitte  to  execute  the  fruites  of  their  wits)  who  had  murthered  a 
great  number  of  bodies,  would  have  set  fire  on  it :  no,  sayde 
another,  very  gravely,  take  heede  what  you  doe,  for  whyle  they 
are  busie  about  these  toyes,  wee  shall  with  more  leysure  conquer 
their  Countries. 

This  indeede  is  the  ordinary  doctrine  of  ignorance,  and  many 
wordes  sometymes  I  have  heard  spent  in  it :  but  because  this 
reason  is  generally  against  all  learning,  aswell  as  Poetrie ;  or 
rather,  all  learning  but  Poetry  :  because  it  were  too  large  a  digres- 
sion, to  handle,  or  at  least,  to  superfluous  :  (sith  it  is  manifest,  that 
all  government  of  action,  is  to  be  gotten  by  knowledg,  and  knowl- 
edge best,  by  gathering  many  knowledges,  which  is,  reading,)  I 
onely  with  Horace,  to  him  that  is  of  that  opinion, 

Jubeo  stultum  esse  libenter  :  u 

for,  as  for  Poetrie  it  selfe,  it  is  the  freest  from  thys  objection.  For 
Poetrie  is  the  companion  of  the  Campes. 

11  Bid  him  be  foolish  willingly.     Perhaps  after  HORACE,  Satires,  1. 1.  63:  — 
Jubeas  miser um  esse,  libenter 
Quatenus  id  facit. 


32  SIX  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

I  dare  undertake,  Orlando  Furioso,  or  honest  King  Arthur,  will 
never  displease  a  Souldier :  but  the  quiddity  of  Ens,  and  Prima 
materia^  will  hardely  agree  with  a  Corslet :  and  therefore,  as  I 
said  in  the  beginning,  even  Turks  and  Tartares  are  delighted 
with  Poets.  Homer,  a  Greek,  florished  before  Greece  florished. 
And  if  to  a  slight  conjecture,  a  conjecture  may  be  opposed  :  truly 
it  may  seeme  that,  as  by  him  their  learned  men  tooke  almost  their 
first  light  of  knowledge,  so  their  active  men  received  their  first 
motions  of  courage.  Onlie  Alexanders  example  may  serve,  who  by 
Plutarch  is  accounted  of  such  vertue  that  Fortune  was  not  his  guide, 
but  his  foote-stoole  :  whose  acts  speake  for  him,  though  Plutarch 
did  not :  indeede,  the  Phosnix  of  warlike  Princes.  This  Alex- 
ander left  his  Schoolemaister,  living  Aristotle,  behinde  him,  but 
tooke  deade  Homer  with  him  :  he  put  the  Philosopher  Calisthenes 
to  death,  for  his  seeming  philosophicall,  indeed  mutinous  stub- 
burnnes.  But  the  chiefe  thing  he  ever  was  heard  to  wish  for,  was, 
that  Homer  had  been  alive.  He  well  found,  he  received  more 
braverie  of  minde  bye  the  patterne  of  Achilles,  then  by  hearing 
the  definition  of  Fortitude  :  and  therefore,  if  Cato  misliked  Fulvius 
for  carrying  Ennius  with  him  to  the  fielde,  it  may  be  aunswered, 
that  if  Cato  misliked  it,  the  noble  Fulvius  liked  it,  or  els  he  had 
not  doone  it :  for  it  was  not  the  excellent  Cato  Uticensis,  (whose 
authority  I  would  much  more  have  reverenced,)  but  it  was  the 
former 13 :  in  truth,  a  bitter  punisher  of  faults,  but  else  a  man  that 
had  never  wel  sacrificed  to  the  Graces.  Hee  misliked  and  cryed 
out  upon  all  Greeke  learning,  and  yet  being  80.  yeeres  olde,  began 
to  learne  it.  Be-like,  fearing  that  Pluto  understood  not  Latine. 
Indeede,  the  Romaine  lawes  allowed  no  person  to  be  carried  to 
the  warres,  but  hee  that  was  in  the  Souldiers  role  :  and  therefore, 
though  Cato  misliked  his  unmustered  person,  hee  misliked  not  his 
worke.  And  if  hee  had,  Scipio  Nasica,  judged  by  common  con- 
sent the  best  Romaine,  loved  him.  Both  the  other  Scipio  Brothers, 
who  had  by  their  vertues  no  lesse  surnames  then  of  Asia  and 

12  being,  m&  first  substance, — philosophical  terms.      13  i.e.,  Cato  the  Elder. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  33 

Affrick,  so  loved  him  that  they  caused  his  body  to  be  buried  in 
their  Sepulcher.  So  as  Cato,  his  authoritie  being  but  against  his 
person,  and  that  aunswered  with  so  farre  greater  then  himselfe,  is 
heerein  of  no  validitie.  But  now  indeede  my  burthen  is  great ; 
now  Plato  his  name  is  layde  upon  mee,  whom  I  must  confesse,  of 
all  Philosophers,  I  have  ever  esteemed  most  worthy  of  reverence, 
and  with  great  reason :  Sith  of  all  Philosophers,  he  is  the  most 
poeticall.  Yet  if  he  will  defile  the  Fountaine,  out  of  which  his 
flowing  streames  have  proceeded,  let  us  boldly  examine  with  what 
reasons  hee  did  it.  First  truly,  a  man  might  maliciously  object 
that  Plato,  being  a  Philosopher,  was  a  naturall  enemie  of  Poets : 
for  indeede,  after  the  Philosophers  had  picked  out  of  the  sweete 
mysteries  of  Poetrie  the  right  discerning  true  points  of  knowledge, 
they  forthwith,  putting  it  in  method,  and  making  a  Schoole-arte 
of  that  which  the  Poets  did  onely  teach  by  a  divine  delightfulnes, 
beginning  to  spurne  at  their  guides,  like  ungrateful  Premises,  were 
not  content  to  set  up  shops  for  themselves,  but  sought  by  all 
meanes  to  discredit  their  maisters.  Which  by  the  force  of  delight 
beeing  barred  them,  the  lesse  they  could  overthrow  them,  the  more 
they  hated  them.  For  indeede,  they  found  for  Homer,  seaven 
Cities  strove  who  should  have  him  for  their  citizen ;  where  many 
Citties  banished  Philosophers,  as  not  fitte  members  to  live  among 
them.  For  onely  repeating  certaine  of  Euripides  verses,  many 
Athenians  had  their  lyves  saved  of  the  Siracusians :  when  the 
Athenians  themselves  thought  many  Philosophers  unwoorthie  to 
live.  • 

Certaine  Poets,  as  Simonides,  and  Pindarus,  had  so  prevailed 
with  Hiero  the  first,  that  of  a  Tirant  they  made  him  a  just  King, 
where  Plato  could  do  so  little  with  Dionisius,  that  he  himselfe,  of 
a  Philosopher,  was  made  a  slave.  •  But  who  should  doe  thus,  I 
confesse,  should  requite  the  objections  made  against  Poets,  with 
like  cavillation  against  Philosophers,  as  likewise  one  should  doe, 
that  should  bid  one  read  Phcedrus,  or  Symposium  in  Plato,  or  the 
discourse  of  love  in  Plutarch,  and  see  whether  any  Poet  doe 
authorize  abominable  filthines,  as  they  doe.  .  .  .  But  I  honor  philo- 


34  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

sophicall  instructions,  and  blesse  the  wits  which  bred  them  :  so  as 
they  be  not  abused,  which  is  likewise  stretched  to  Poetrie. 

S.  Paule  himselfe,  (who  yet  for  the  credite  of  Poets  alledgeth 
twise  two  Poets,  and  one  of  them  by  the  name  of  a  Prophet)  set- 
teth  a  watch-word  upon  Philosophy,  indeede  upon  the  abuse.  So 
dooth  Plato,  upon  the  abuse,  not  upon  Poetrie.  Plato  found  fault 
that  the  Poets  of  his  time  filled  the  worlde  with  wrong  opinions  of 
the  Gods,  making  light  tales  of  that  unspotted  essence  ;  and  there- 
fore, would  not  have  the  youth  depraved  with  such  opinions. 
Heerin  may  much  be  said,  let  this  suffice  :  the  Poets  did  not 
induce  such  opinions,  but  dyd  imitate  those  opinions  already 
induced.  For  all  the  Greek  stories  can  well  testifie  that  the 
very  religion  of  that  time  stoode  upon  many,  and  many-fashioned 
Gods,  not  taught  so  by  the  Poets,  but  followed,  according  to  their 
nature  of  imitation.  Who  list  may  reade  in  Plutarch  the  discourses 
of  Isis,  and  Osiris,  of  the  cause  why  Oracles  ceased,  of  the  divine 
providence  :  and  see  whether  the  Theologie  of  that  nation  stood 
not  upon  such  dreames,  which  the  Poets  indeed  supersticiously 
observed,  and  truly,  (sith  they  had  not  the  light  of  Christ,)  did 
much  better  in  it  then  the  Philosophers,  who,  shaking  off  super- 
stition, brought  in  Atheisme.  Plato  therefore,  (whose  authoritie 
I  had  much  rather  justly  conster,14  then  unjustly  resist,)  meant  not 
in  general  of  Poets,  in  those  words  of  which  Julius  Scaliger  saith 
Qua  authoritate,  barbari  quidam,  atque  hispidi,  abuti  velint,  ad 
Poetas  e  republica  exigendos :  ^  but  only  meant,  to  drive  out  those 
wrong  opinions  of  th/:  Deitie  (whereof-now,  without  further  law, 
Christianity  hath  taken  away  all  the  hurtful  beliefe,)  perchance 
(as  he  thought)  norished  by  the  then  esteemed  Poets.  And  a 
man  need  goe  no  further  then  to  Plato  himselfe,  to  know  his  mean- 
ing :  who  in  his  Dialogue  called  Ion,  giveth  high,  and  rightly  divine 
commendation  to  Poetrie.  So  as  Plato,  banishing  the  abuse,  not 
the  thing,  not  banishing  it,  but  giving  due  honor  unto  it,  shall  be 

14  construe. 

15  Which  authority  certain  barbarous  and  rude  persons  wish  to  abuse  in 
order  to  drive  poets  out  of  the  republic. 


AN  A  POLO  G  IE  FOR  POETRIE.  35 

our  Patron,  and  not  our  adversarie.  For  indeed  I  had  much  rather, 
(sith  truly  I  may  doe  it)  shew  theyr  mistaking  of  Plato,  (under 
whose  Lyons  skin  they  would  make  an  Asse-like  braying  against 
Poesie,)  then  goe  about  to  overthrow  his  authority,  whom  the  wiser 
a  man  is,  the  more  just  cause  he  shall  find  to  have  in  admiration  : 
especially,  sith  he  attributeth  unto  Poesie  more  then  my  selfe  doe ; 
namely,  to  be  a  very  inspiring  of  a  divine  force,  farre  above  mans 
wit ;  as  in  the  aforenamed  Dialogue  is  apparent. 

Of  the  other  side,  who  wold  shew  the  honors,  have  been  by 
the  best  sort  of  judgements  granted  them,  a  whole  Sea  of  examples 
woulde  present  themselves.16  Alexanders,  Ccesars,  Scipios,  all 
favorers  of  Poets.  Lelius,  called  the  Romane  Socrates,  himselfe  a 
Poet :  so  as  part  of  Heautontimorumenon  in  Terence,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  made  by  him.  And  even  the  Greek  Socrates,  whom 
Apollo  confirmed  to  be  the  onely  wise  man,  is  sayde  to  have  spent 
part  of  his  old  tyme  in  putting  Esops  fables  into  verses.  And 
therefore,  full  evill  should  it  become  his  scholler  Plato  to  put  such 
words  in  his  Maisters  mouth  against  Poets.  But  what  need  more? 
Aristotle  writes  the  Arte  of  Poesie  :  and  why  if  it  should  not  be 
written?  Plutarch  teacheth  the  use  to  be  gathered  of  them,  and 
how  if  they  should  not  be  read  ?  And  who  reades  Plutarchs  eyther 
historic  or  philosophy,  shall  finde  hee  trymmeth  both  theyr  gar- 
ments with  gards*  of  Poesie.  But  I  list  not  to  defend  Poesie  with 
the  helpe  of  her  underling,  Historiography.  Let  it  suflfise  that  it 
is  a  fit  soyle  for  prayse  to  dwell  upon  :  and  what  dispraise  may 
set  upon  it,  is  eyther  easily  over-come,  or  transformed  into  just 
commendation.  So  that,  sith  the  excellencies  of  it  may  be  so 
easily,  and  so  justly  confirmed,  and  the  low-creeping  objections, 
soone  trodden  downe ;  it  not  being  an  Art  of  lyes,  but  of  true 
doctrine  :  not  of  effeminatenes,  but  of  notable  stirring  of  courage  : 
not  of  abusing  mans  witte,  but  of  strengthning  mans  wit :  not 
banished,  but  honored  by  Plato :  let  us  rather  plant  more  Laurels, 

16  Construction  confused  by  omission  of  antecedent  of  -who  (to  those)  and 
subject  of  have  been  (that).  Elizabethan,  and  even  later,  writers,  played  sad 
havoc  with  relative  constructions.  *  facings  or  trimmings. 


36  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

for  to  engarland  our  Poets  heads,  (which  honor  of  beeing  laureat, 
as  besides  them,  onely  tryumphant  Captaines  weare,  is  a  sufficient 
authority  to  shewe  the  price  they  ought  to  be  had  in,)  then  suffer 
the  ill-favouring  breath  of  such  wrong-speakers  once  to  blowe 
upon  the  cleere  springs  of  Poesie. 

But  sith  I  have  runne  so  long  a  careere  in  this  matter,  me 
thinks,  before  I  give  my  penne  a  fulle  stop,  it  shalbe  but  a 
little  more  lost  time  to  inquire  why  England  (the  Mother  of 
excellent  mindes,)  should  bee  growne  so  hard  a  step-mother  to 
Poets,  who  certainly  in  wit  ought  to  passe  all  other :  sith  all  onely 
proceedeth  from  their  wit,  being  indeede  makers  cf  themselves, 
not  takers  of  others.  How  can  I  but  exclaime, 

Mtisa,  mihi  causas  memora,  quo  numine  Itzso.11 

Sweete  Poesie,  that  hath  aunciently  had  Kings,  Emperors,  Sena- 
tors, great  Captaines,  such  as  besides  a  thousand  others,  David, 
Adrian,  Sophocles,  Germanicus,  not  onely  to  favour  poets,  but  to 
be  Poets.  And  of  our  neerer  times,  can  present  for  her  Patrons, 
a  Robert,  king  of  Sicil,  the  great  king  Francis  of  France,  King 
James  of  Scotland.  Such  Cardinals  as  JBembus,  and  Bibiena.  Such 
famous  Preachers  and  Teachers,  as  Beza  and  Melancthon.  So 
learned  Philosophers,  as  Fracas torius  and  Scaliger.  So  great 
Orators,  as  Pontanus  and  Muretus.  So  piercing  wits,  as  George 
Buchanan.  So  grave  Counsellors,  as  besides  many,  but  before 
all,  that  Hospital!  Q{  Fraunce  :  then  whom,  (I  thinke)  that  Realme 
never  brought  forth  a  more  accomplished  judgement,  more  firmely 
builded  upon  vertue.  I  say  these,  with  numbers  of  others,  not 
onely  to  read  others  Poesies,  but  to  poetise  for  others  reading, 
that  Poesie  thus  embraced  in  all  other  places,  should  onely  finde 
in  our  time  a  hard  welcome  in  England,  I  thinke  the  very  earth 
lamenteth  it,  and  therefore  decketh  our  Soyle  with  fewer  Laurels 
then  it  was  accustomed.  For  heertofore,  Poets  have  in  England 
also  florished.  And  which  is  to  be  noted,  even  in  those  times 

17  O  Muse,  tell  me  the  causes  by  -what  offended  deity,  etc.  — VIRGIL,  ^Eneid, 
1.8. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  37 

when  the  trumpet  of  Mars  did  sounde  loudest.  And  now  that 
an  over-faint  quietnes  should  seeme  to  strew  the  house  for  Poets, 
they  are  almost  in  as  good  reputation  as  the  Mountibancks  at 
Venice.  Truly  even  that,  as  of  the  one  side  it  giveth  great  praise 
to  Poesie,  which  like  Venus,  (but  to  better  purpose)  hath  rather 
be  troubled  in  the  net  with  Mars,  then  enjoy  the  homelie  quiet 
of  Vulcan :  so  serves  it  for  a  peece  of  a  reason,  why  they  are  lesse 
gratefull  to  idle  England,  which  nowe  can  scarce  endure  the  payne 
of  a  pen.  Upon  this  necessarily  followeth  that  base  men  with 
servile  wits  undertake  it :  who  think  it  inough,  if  they  can  be  re- 
warded of  the  Printer.  And  so  as  Epaminondas  is  sayd,  with  the 
honor  of  his  vertue,  to  have  made  an  office,  by  his  exercising  it, 
which  before  was  contemptible,  to  become  highly  respected :  so 
these,  no  more  but  setting  their  names  to  it,  by  their  owne  disgrace- 
fulnes,  disgrace  the  most  gracefull  Poesie.  For  now,  .  .  .  with- 
out any  commission,  they  doe  poste  over  the  banckes  of  Helicon 
tyll  they  make  the  readers  more  weary  than  Poste-horses  :  while 
in  the  mean  tyme,  they 

Queis  meliore  Into  finxit  prtzcordia    Titan?-* 

are  better  content  to  suppresse  the  outflowing 19  of  their  wit,  then 
by  publishing  them  to  bee  accounted  Knights  of  the  same  order. 
But  I,  that  before  ever  I  durst  aspire  unto  the  dignitie,  am  ad- 
mitted into  the  company  of  the  Paper-blurers,  doe  finde  the  very 
true  cause  of  our  wanting  estimation,  is  want  of  desert :  taking 
upon  us  to  be  Poets  in  despight  of  Pallas.  Nowe,  wherein  we  want 
desert,  were  a  thanke-worthy  labour  to  expresse  :  but  if  I  knew, 
I  should  have  mended  my  selfe.  But  I,  as  I  never  desired  the 
title,  so.  have  I  neglected  the  meanes  to  come  by  it.  Onely  over- 
mastered by  some  thoughts,  I  yeelded  an  inckie  tribute  unto  them. 
Mary,  they  that  delight  in  Poesie  it  selfe,  should  seeke  to  knowe 
what  they  doe,  and  how  they  doe ;  and  especially  looke  them- 
selves in  an  unflattering  Glasse  of  reason,  if  they  bee  inclinable 

18  Whose  hearts  Titan  has  formed  out  of  better  clay.  —  JUVENAL,  XIV.  34. 

19  outflowings? 


38  SfJi  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

unto  it.  For  Poesie  must  not  be  drawne  by  the  eares,  it  must  bee 
gently  led,  or  rather  it  must  lead.  Which  was  partly  the  cause 
that  made  the  auncient  learned  affirme  it  was  a  divine  gift,  and 
no  humaine  skill :  sith  all  other  knowledges  lie  ready  for  any  that 
hath  strength  of  witte  :  A  Poet,  no  industrie  can  make,  if  his  owne 
Genius  bee  not  carried  unto  it :  and  therefore  is  it  an  old  Proverbe, 
Orator fit ;  Poeta  nascitur™  Yet  confesse  I  alwayes  that  as  the 
firtilest  ground  must  bee  manured,  so  must  the  highest  flying  wit 
have  a  Dedalus  to  guide  him.  That  Dedalus,  they  say,  both  in 
this,  and  in  other,  hath  three  wings,  to  beare  it  selfe  up  into  the 
ayre  of  due  commendation  :  that  is,  Arte,  Imitation,  and  Exercise. 
But  these,  neyther  artificiall  rules,  nor  imitative  patternes,  we  much 
cumber  our  selves  withall.  Exercise  indeede  wee  doe,  but  that 
very  fore-backwardly  :  for  where  we  should  exercise  to  know,  wee 
exercise  as  having  knowne  :  and  so  is  oure  braine  delivered  of 
much  matter,  which  never  was  begotten  by  knowledge.  For, 
there  being  two  principal  parts,  matter  to  be  expressed  by  wordes, 
and  words  to  expresse  the  matter,  in  neyther  wee  use  Arte,  or 
Imitation,  rightly.  Our  matter  is  Quodlibit-1  indeed,  though 
wrongly  perfourming  Ovids  verse. 

{Quicquid  conabar  dicer e  versus  erit  \_erat?~\  :)  2'2 

never  marshalling  it  into  an  assured  rancke,  that  almost  the  read- 
ers cannot  tell  where  to  finde  themselves. 

Chaucer  undoubtedly  did  excellently  in  hys  Troylus  and  Cres- 
seid ;  of  whom  truly  I  know  not  whether  to  mervaile  more,  either 
that  he  in  that  mistie  time  could  see  so  clearely,  or  that  wee  in 
this  cleare  age  walke  so  stumblingly  after  him.  Yet  had  he  great 
wants,  fitte  to  be  forgiven,  in  so  reverent  antiquity.  I  account 
the  Mirrour  of*  Magistrates  meetely  furnished  of  beautiful  parts  ; 
and  in  the  Earl  of  Surries  Liricks  many  things  tasting  of  a  noble 

21  An  orator  is  made  ;  a  poet  is  born.  21  anything  you  please. 

22  Whatever  I  attempted  to  utter  will  be  \was~\  verse.    After  Ovid,  Tristia, 
IV.  10.  20 :  Et  quod  tentabam  dicere  versus  erat,  And  what  I  tried  to  say  was 
verse.  *  for. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POET R IE.  39 

birth,  and  worthy  of  a  noble  minde.  The  Sheapheards  Kalender 
hath  much  Poetrie  in  his  Eglogues :  indeede  worthy  the  reading 
if  I  be  not  deceived.  That  same  framing  of  his  stile  to  an  old 
rustick  language,  I  dare  not  allowe,  sith  neyther  Theocritus  in 
Greeke,  Virgill  in  Latine,  nor  Sanazar  in  Italian,  did  affect  it. 
Besides  these,  doe  I  not  remember  to  have  scene  but  fewe,  (to 
speake  boldely)  printed,  that  have  poeticall  sinnewes  in  them  : 
for  proofe  whereof,  let  but  most  of  the  verses  bee  put  in  Prose, 
and  then  aske  the  meaning ;  and  it  will  be  found  that  one  verse 
did  but  beget  another,  without  ordering  at  the  first  what  should 
be  at  the  last :  which  becomes  a  confused  masse  of  words,  with  a 
tingling  sound  of  ryme,  barely  accompanied  with  reason. 

Our  Tragedies  and  Comedies,  (not  without  cause  cried  out 
against,)  observing  rules,  neyther  of  honest  civilitie,  nor  of  skilfull 
Poetrie,  excepting  Gorboduck,  (againe,  I  say,  of  those  that  I  have 
scene),  which  notwithstanding,  as  it  is  full  of  stately  speeches,  and 
well  sounding  Phrases,  clyming  to  the  height  of  Seneca  his  stile, 
and  as  full  of  notable  moralitie,  which  it  doth  most  delightfully 
teach,  and  so  obtayne  the  very  end  of  Poesie  :  yet  in  troth  it  is 
very  defectious  in  the  circumstaunces,23  which  greeveth  mee,  because 
it  might  not  remaine  as  an  exact  model  of  all  Tragedies.  For  it 
is  faulty  both  in  place,  and  time,  the  two  necessary  companions 
of  all  corporall  actions.  For  where  the  stage  should  alwaies  repre- 
sent but  one  place,  and  the  uttermost  time  presupposed  in  it  should 
be,  both  by  Aristotles  precept  and  common  reason,  but  one  day : 
there  is  both  many  dayes,  and  many  places,  inartificially  imagined. 
But  if  it  be  so  in  Gorboduck,  how  much  more  in  al  the  rest? 
where  you  shall  have  Asia  of  the  one  side,  and  Affrick  of  the 
other,  and  so  many  other  under-kingdoms,  that  the  Player,  when 
he  commeth  in,  must  ever  begin  with  telling  you  where  he  is : 
or  els  the  tale  wil  not  be  conceived.  Now  ye  shal  have  three 
Ladies  walke  to  gather  flowers,  and  then  we  must  beleeve  the 
stage  to  be  a  Garden.  By  and  by  we  heare  newes  of  shipwracke 

28  defective  in  particulars. 


40  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

in  the  same  place,  and  then  wee  are  to  blame  if  we  accept  it  not 
for  a  rock. 

Upon  the  backe  of  that,  comes  out  a  hidious  Monster,  with 
fire  and  smoke,  and  then  the  miserable  beholders  are  bounde  to 
take  it  for  a  Cave.  While  in  the  mean-time  two  Armies  flye  in, 
represented  with  foure  swords  and  bucklers,  and  then  what  harde 
heart  will  not  receive  it  for  a  pitched  fielde  ?  Now,  of  time  they 
are  much  more  liberall,  .  .  .  which  how  absurd  it  is  in  sence,  even 
sence  may  imagine,  and  Arte  hath  taught,  and  all  auncient  ex- 
amples justified  :  and  at  this  day,  the  ordinary  Players  in  Italic 
wil  not  erre  in.  Yet  wil  some  bring  in  an  example  of  Eunuchus 
in  Terence,  that  containeth  matter  of  two  dayes,  yet  far  short  of 
twenty  yeeres.  True  it  is,  and  so  was  it  to  be  playd  in  two  daies, 
and  so  fitted  to  the  time  it  set  forth.  And  though  Plautus  hath 
in  one  place  done  amisse,  let  us  hit  with  him,  and  not  misse  with 
him.  But  they  wil  say,  how  then  shal  we  set  forth  a  story,  which 
containeth  both  many  places,  and  many  times  ?  And  doe  they 
not  knowe  that  a  Tragedie  is  tied  to  the  lawes  of  Poesie,  and  not 
of  Historic?  not  bound  to  follow  the  storie,  but  having  liberty, 
either  to  faine  a  quite  newe  matter,  or  to  frame  the  historic  to  the 
most  tragicall  conveniencie.  Againe,  many  things  may  be  told, 
which  cannot  be  shewed,  if  they  knowe  the  difference  betwixt 
reporting  and  representing.  As  for  example,  I  may  speake,  (though 
I  am  heere)  of  Peru,  and  in  speech,  digresse  from  that,  to  the 
description  of  Calicut :  but  in  action,  I  cannot  represent  it  without 
Pacolets  horse 24 :  and  so  was  the  manner  the  Auncients  tooke,  by 
some  Nunciusf'  to  recount  thinges  done  in  former  time,  or  other 
place.  Lastly,  if  they  wil  represent  an  history,  they  must  not  (as 
Horace  saith)  beginne  Ab  ovo : 2(i  but  they  must  come  to  the  prin- 
cipall  poynt  of  that  one  action,  which  they  wil  represent.  By 
example  this  wil  be  best  expressed.  I  have  a  story  of  young  Poli- 
dorus,  delivered  for  safeties  sake,  with  great  riches,  by  his  Father 

24  See  Wheeler's  Vocabulary,  in  Appendix  to  Webster's  Dictionary. 
25  messenger.  .  K  From  the  egg. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  41 

Priamus  to  Polimnestor  king  of  Thrace,  in  the  Troyan  war  time  : 
Hee  after  some  yeeres,  hearing  the  overthrowe  of  Priamus,  for  to 
make  the  treasure  his  owne,  murthereth  the  child  :  the  body  of 
the  child  is  taken  tip.  Hecuba,  shee  the  same  day,  findeth  a 
slight  to  bee  revenged  most  cruelly  of  the  Tyrant :  where  nowe 
would  one  of  our  Tragedy  writers  begin,  but  with  the  delivery  of 
the  childe?  Then  should  he  sayle  over  into  Thrace,  and  so  spend 
I  know  not  how  many  yeeres,  and  travaile  numbers  of  places. 
But  where  dooth  Euripides  ?  Even  with  the  finding  of  the  body, 
leaving  the  rest  to  be  tolde  by  the  spirit  of  Polidorus,  This  need 
no  further  to  be  inlarged,  the  dullest  wit  may  conceive  it.  But 
besides  these  grosse  absurdities,  how  all  theyr  Playes  be  neither 
right  Tragedies,  nor  right  Comedies  :  mingling  Kings  and  Clownes, 
not  because  the  matter  so  carrieth  it :  but  thrust  in  Clownes  by 
head  and  shoulders,  to  play  a  part  in  majesticall  matters,  with 
neither  decencie  nor  discretion.  So  as  neither  the  admiration  and 
commiseration,  nor  the  right  sportfulnes,  is  by  their  mungrell 
Tragy-comedie  obtained.  I  know  Apuleius  did  some-what  so, 
but  that  is  a  thing  recounted  with  space  of  time,  not  represented 
in  one  moment :  and  I  knowe  the  Auncients  have  one  or  two 
examples  of  Tragy-comedies,  as  Plautus  hath  Amphitrio :  but  if 
we  marke  them  well,  we  shall  find  that  they  never,  or  very  daintily, 
match  Horn-pypes  and  Funeralls.  So  falleth  it  out,  that  having 
indeed  no  right  Comedy,  in  that  comicall  part  of  our  Tragedy,  we 
have  nothing  but  scurrility,  unwoorthy  of  any  chaste  eares  :  or  some 
extreame  shew  of  doltishnes,  indeed  fit  to  lift  up  a  loude  laughter, 
and  nothing  els  :  where  the  whole  tract  of  a  Comedy  shoulde  be 
full  of  delight,  as  the  Tragedy  shoulde  be  still  maintained  in  a 
well  raised  admiration.  But  our  Comedians  thinke  there  is  no 
delight  without  laughter,  which  is  very  wrong,  for  though  laughter 
may  come  with  delight,  yet  commeth  it  not  of  delight :  as  though 
delight  should  be  the  cause  of  laughter,  but  well  may  one  thing 
breed  both  together :  nay,  rather  in  themselves,  they  have  as  it 
were,  a  kind  of  contrarietie :  for  delight  we  scarcely  doe,  but  in 
things  that  have  a  conveniencie  to  our  selves,  or  to  the  generall 


42  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

nature  :  laughter  almost  ever  commeth  of  things  most  dispropor- 
tioned  to  our  selves  and  nature.  Delight  hath  a  joy  in  it,  either 
permanent,  or  present.  Laughter  hath  onely  a  scornful  tickling. 
For  example,  we  are  ravished  with  delight  to  see  a  faire  woman, 
and  yet  are  far  from  being  moved  to  laughter.  We  laugh  at  de- 
formed creatures,  wherein  certainely  we  cannot  delight.  We 
delight  in  good  chaunces,  we  laugh  at  mischaunces ;  we  delight 
to  heare  the  happines  of  our  friends,  or  Country ;  at  which  he 
were  worthy  to  be  laughed  at  that  would  laugh ;  wee  shall  con- 
trarily  laugh  sometimes,  to  finde  a  matter  quite  mistaken,  and  goe 
downe  the  hill  agaynst  the  byas,  in  the  mouth  of  some  such  men 
as  for  the  respect  of  them,  one  shalbe  hartely  sorry,  yet  he  can- 
not chuse  but  laugh ;  and  so  is  rather  pained,  then  delighted  with 
laughter.  Yet  deny  I  not  but  that  they  may  goe  well  together, 
for  as  in  Alexanders  picture  well  set  out,  wee  delight  without 
laughter,  and  in  twenty  mad  Anticks  we  laugh  without  delight :  so 
in  Hercules,  painted  with  his  great  beard,  and  furious  countenance, 
in  womans  attire,  spinning  at  Omphales  commaundement,  it 
breedeth  both  delight  and  laughter.  For  the  representing  of  so 
strange  a  power  in  love,  procureth  delight :  and  the  scornefulnes 
of  the  action,  stirreth  laughter.  But  I  speake  to  this  purpose, 
that  all  the  end  of  the  comicall  part  bee  not  upon  such  scornefull 
matters  as  stirreth  laughter  onely  :  but  mixt  with  it,  that  delight- 
ful teaching  which  is  the  end  of  Poesie.  And  the  great  fault  even 
in  that  point  of  laughter,  and  forbidden  plainely  by  Aristotle,  is 
that  they  styrre  laughter  in  sinfull  things ;  which  are  rather  exe- 
crable then  ridiculous :  or  in  miserable,  which  are  rather  to  be 
pittied  then  scorned.  For  what  is  it  to  make  folkes  gape  at  a 
wretched  Begger,  or  a  beggerly  Clowne?  or  against  lawe  of  hos- 
pitality, to  jest  at  straungers,  because  they  speake  not  English  so 
well  as  wee  doe  ?  what  do  we  learne,  sith  it  is  certaine 

{Nil  habet  infcelix  paupertas  durius  in  se, 
Quam  quod  ridicules  homines  facit.y*'1 

27  Unhappy  poverty  has  in  itself  nothing  more  disagreeable  than  that  it 
makes  men  ridiculous,  —  JUVENAL,  III.  152-3. 


AN  A  POLO G IE  FOR  POETRIE.  43 

But  rather  a  busy  loving  Courtier,  a  hartles  threatening  Thraso. 
A  selfe-wise-seeming  schoolemaster.  A  awry-transformed  Travel- 
ler. These,  if  we  sawe  walke  in  stage  names,  which  wee  play 
naturally,  therein  were  delightfull  laughter,  and  teaching  delight- 
fulnes  :  as  in  the  other,  the  Tragedies  of  Buchanan  doe  justly 
bring  forth  a  divine  admiration.  But  I  have  lavished  out  too 
many  wordes  of  this  play  matter.  I  doe  it  because  as  they  are 
excelling  parts  of  Poesie,  so  is  there  none  so  much  used  in  Eng- 
land, and  none  can  be  more  pittifully  abused.  Which  like  an 
unmannerly  Daughter,  shewing  a  bad  education,  causeth  her 
mother  Poesies  honesty  to  bee  called  in  question.  Other  sorts 
of  Poetry  almost  have  we  none,  but  that  Lyricall  kind  of  Songs 
and  Sonnets  :  which,  Lord,  if  he  gave  us  so  goode  mindes,  how 
well  it  might  be  imployed,  and  with  howe  heavenly  fruite,  both 
private  and  publique,  in  singing  the  prayses  of  the  immortall 
beauty  :  the  immortall  goodnes  of  that  God  who  gyveth  us  hands 
to  write,  and  wits  to  conceive,  of  which  we  might  well  want  words, 
but  never  matter,  of  which  we  could  turne  our  eies  to  nothing, 
but  we  should  ever  have  new  budding  occasions.  But  truely 
many  of  such  writings  as  come  under  the  banner  of  unresistable 
love,  if  I  were  a  Mistres,  would  never  perswade  mee  they  were 
in  love  :  so  coldely  they  apply  fiery  speeches,  as  men  that  had 
rather  red  Lovers  writings ;  and  so  caught  up  certaine  swelling 
phrases,  which  hang  together,  like  a  man  which  once  tolde  mee, 
the  winde  was  at  North,  West,  and  by  South,  because  he  would 
be  sure  to  name  windes  enowe  :  then  that  in  truth  they  feele  those 
passions,  which  easily  (as  I  think)  may  be  bewrayed,  by  that  same 
forciblenes,  or  Energia,  (as  the  Greekes  cal  it)  of  the  writer. 
But  let  this  bee  a  sufficient,  though  short  note,  that  wee  misse  the 
right  use  of  the  materiall  point  of  Poesie. 

Now,  for  the  out-side  of  it,  which  is  words,  or  (as  I  may  tearme 
it)  Diction,  it  is  even  well  worse.  So  is  that  honny-flowing  Matron 
Eloquence,  apparelled,  or  rather  disguised,  in  a  Curtizan-like  painted 
affectation  :  one  time  with  so  farre  fette  M  words  they  may  seeme 

28  fetched. 


44  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

Monsters  :  but  must  seeme  straungers  to  any  poore  English  man. 
Another  tyme,  with  coursing  of  a  Letter,  as  if  they  were  bound  to 
followe  the  method  of  a  Dictionary  :  an  other  tyme,  with  figures 
and  flowers,  extreamelie  winter-starved.  But  I  would  this  fault 
were  only  peculiar  to  Versifiers,  and  had  not  as  large  possession 
among  Prose-printers ;  and,  (which  is  to  be  mervailed)  among 
many  Schollers ;  and,  (which  is  to  be  pittied)  among  some 
Preachers.  Truly  I  could  wish,  if  at  least  I  might  be  so  bold,  to 
wish  in  a  thing  beyond  the  reach  of  my  capacity,  the  diligent 
imitators  of  Titllie,  and  Demosthenes,  (most  worthy  to  be  imitated) 
did  not  so  much  keep  Nizolian  Paper-bookes  of  their  figures  and 
phrases,  as  by  attentive  translation  (as  it  were)  devoure  them 
whole,  and  make  them  wholly  theirs  :  For  nowe  they  cast  Sugar 
and  Spice  upon  every  dish  that  is  served  to  the  table ;  Like  those 
Indians,  not  content  to  weare  eare-rings  at  the  fit  and  naturall 
place  of  the  eares,  but  they  will  thrust  Jewels  through  their  nose, 
and  lippes,  because  they  will  be  sure  to  be  fine. 

Tullie,  when  he  was  to  drive  out  Cateline,  as  it  were  with  a 
Thunder-bolt  of  eloquence,  often  used  that  figure  of  repitition, 
Vivit?  vivit?  into  Senatum  venit  &C.29  Indeed,  inflamed  with  a 
well-grounded  rage,  hee  would  have  his  words  (as  it  were)  double 
out  of  his  mouth  :  and  so  doe  that  artificially,  which  we  see  men 
doe  in  choller  naturally.  And  wee,  having  noted  the  grace  of  those 
words,  hale  ^  them  in  sometime  to  a  familier  Epistle,  when  it  were 
to  too  much  choller  to  be  chollerick.  Now  for  similitudes,  in 
certaine  printed  discourses,  I  thinke  all  Herbarists,  all  stories  of 
Beasts,  Foules,  and  Fishes,  are  rifled  up,  that  they  come  in  multi- 
tudes to  waite  upon  any  of  our  conceits ;  which  certainly  is  as 
absurd  a  surfet  to  the  eares  as  is  possible :  for  the  force  of  a 
similitude,  not  being  to  proove  anything  to  a  contrary  Disputer, 
but  onely  to  explane  to  a  willing  hearer,  when  that  is  done,  the 
rest  is  a  most  tedious  prattling  :  rather  over-swaying  the  memory 
from  the  purpose  whereto  they  were  applyed,  then  any  whit  in- 

29  Does  he  live  ?  does  he  live  ?  yea,  he  comes  to  the  Senate,  etc.  —  CiCERC, 
Catiline,  I.  I,  2.  30  haul,  drag. 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  45 

forming  the  judgement,  already  eyther  satis-fied,  or  by  similitudes 
not  to  be  satis-fied.  For  my  part,  I  doe  not  doubt,  when  Antonius 
and  Crassus,  the  great  forefathers  of  Cicero  in  eloquence,  the  one 
(as  Cicero  testifieth  of  them)  pretended  not  to  know  Arte,  the 
other,  not  to  set  by  it :  because  with  a  playne  sensiblenes,  they 
might  win  credit  of  popular  eares ;  which  credit  is  the  nearest 
step  to  perswasion :  which  perswasion  is  the  chiefe  marke  of 
Oratory ;  I  doe  not  doubt  (I  say)  but  that  they  used  these  tracks 
very  sparingly,  which  who  doth  generally  use,  any  man  may  see 
doth  daunce  to  his  owne  musick :  and  so  be  noted  by  the  audi- 
ence, more  careful  to  speake  curiously,  then  to  speake  truly. 

Undoubtedly,  (at  least  to  my  opinion  undoubtedly,)  I  have  found 
in  divers  smally  learned  Courtiers  a  more  sounde  stile,  then  in  some 
professors  of  learning  :  of  which  I  can  gesse  no  other  cause,  but  that 
the  Courtier  following  that  which  by  practise  hee  findeth  fittest  to 
nature,  therein,  (though  he  know  it  not,)  doth  according  to  Art, 
though  not  by  Art :  where  the  other,  using  Art  to  shew  Art,  and 
not  to  hide  Art,  (as  in  these  cases  he  should  doe)  flyeth  from 
nature,  and  indeede  abuseth  Art. 

But  what?  me  thinkes  I  deserve  to  be  pounded  for  straying 
from  Poetrie  to  Oratorie  :  but  both  have  such  an  affinity  in  this 
wordish  consideration,  that  I  thinke  this  digression  will  make  my 
meaning  receive  the  fuller  understanding :  which  is  not  to  take 
upon  me  to  teach  Poets  howe  they  should  doe,  but  onely  finding 
my  selfe  sick  among  the  rest,  to  shewe  some  one  or  two  spots  of 
the  common  infection,  growne  among  the  most  part  of  Writers : 
that  acknowledging  our  selves  somewhat  awry,  we  may  bend  to 
the  right  use  both  of  matter  and  manner ;  whereto  our  language 
gyveth  us  great  occasion,  beeing  indeed  capable  of  any  excellent 
exercising  of  it.  I  know,  some  will  say  it  is  a  mingled  language. 
And  why  not  so  much  the  better,  taking  the  best  of  both  the 
other?  Another  will  say  it  wanteth  Grammer.  Nay  truly,  it 
hath  that  prayse,  that  it  wanteth  not  Grammer :  for  Grammer  it 
might  have,  but  it  needes  it  not ;  beeing  so  easie  of  it  selfe,  and 
so  voyd  of  those  cumbersome  differences  of  Cases,  Genders, 


46  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

Moodes,  and  Tenses,  which  I  thinke  was  a  peece  of  the  Tower  of 
Babilons  curse,  that  a  man  should  be  put  to  schoole  to  learne  his 
mother-tongue.  But  for  the  uttering  sweetly  and  properly  the 
conceits  of  the  minde,  which  is  the  end  of  speech,  that  hath  it 
equally  with  any  other  tongue  in  the  world  :  and  is  particulerly 
happy  in  compositions  of  two  or  three  words  together,  neere  the 
Greeke,  far  beyond  the  Latine  :  which  is  one  of  the  greatest 
beauties  can  be  in  a  language. 

Now,  of  versifying  there  are  two  sorts,  the  one  Auncient,  the 
other  Moderne  :  the  Auncient  marked  the  quantitie  of  each  silable, 
and  according  to  that  framed  his  verse  :  the  Moderne,  observing 
onely  number,  (with  some  regarde  of  the  accent,)  the  chiefe  life 
of  it  standeth  in  that  lyke  sounding  of  the  words,  which  wee  call 
Ryme.  Whether  of  these  be  the  most  excellent,  would  beare 
many  speeches.  The  Auncient,  (no  doubt)  more  fit  for  Musick, 
both  words  and  tune  observing  quantity,  and  more  fit  lively  to 
expresse  divers  passions  by  the  low  and  lofty  sounde  of  the  well- 
weyed  silable.  The  latter  likewise,  with  hys  Ryme,  striketh  a 
certaine  musick  to  the  eare  :  and  in  fine,  sith  it  dooth  delight, 
though  by  another  way,  it  obtaines  the  same  purpose  :  there  beeing 
in  eyther  sweetnes,  and  wanting  in  neither  majestic.  Truely  the 
English,  before  any  other  vulgar  language  I  know,  is  fit  for  both 
sorts  :  for,  for  the  Ancient,  the  Italian  is  so  full  of  Vowels  that 
it  must  ever  be  cumbred  with  Elisions.  The  Dutch,  so  of  the 
other  side  with  Consonants,  that  they  cannot  yeeld  the  sweet 
slyding  fit  for  a  Verse.  The  French,  in  his  whole  language,  hath 
not  one  word  that  hath  his  accent  in  the  last  silable  saving  two, 
called  Antepenultima,  and  little  more  hath  the  Spanish  :  and  there- 
fore very  gracelesly  may  they  use  Dactiles.  The  English  is  sub- 
ject to  none  of  these  defects. 

Nowe,  for  the  ryme,  though  wee  doe  not  observe  quantitie,  yet 
wee  observe  the  accent  very  precisely :  which  other  languages 
eyther  cannot  doe,  or  will  not  doe  so  absolutely.  That  Ccesura, 
or  breathing  place  in  the  middest  of  the  verse,  neither  Italian  nor 
Spanish  have,  the  French,  and  we,  never  almost  fayle  of.  Lastly, 


AN  APOLOGIE  FOR  POETRIE.  47 

even  the  very  ryme  it  selfe,  the  Italian  cannot  put  in  the  last 
silable,  by  the  French  named  the  Masculine  ryme,  but  still  in  the 
next  to  the  last,  which  the  French  call  the  Female  ;  or  the  next 
before  that,  which  the  Italians  terme  Sdrucciola?1  The  example 
of  the  former  is  Buono,  Suono,  of  the  Sdrucciola,  Femina,  Semina. 
The  French,  of  the  other  side,  hath  both  the  Male,  as  Bon,  Son, 
and  the  Female,  as  Plaise,  Taise.  But  the  Sdrucciola,  hee  hath 
not :  where  the  English  hath  all  three,  as  Due,  True,  Father, 
Rather,  Motion,  Potion  ; 32  with  much  more  which  might  be  sayd, 
but  that  I  finde  already  the  triflingnes  of  this  discourse  is  much 
too  much  enlarged.  So  that  sith  the  ever-praise-worthy  Poesie  is 
full  of  vertue-breeding  delightfulnes,  and  voyde  of  no  gyfte  that 
ought  to  be  in  the  noble  name  of  learning :  sith  the  blames  laid 
against  it  are  either  false,  or  feeble  :  sith  the  cause  why  it  is  not 
esteemed  in  Englande,  is  the  fault  of  Poet-apes,  not  Poets  :  sith 
lastly,  our  tongue  is  most  fit  to  honor  Poesie,  and  to  bee  honored 
by  Poesie,  I  conjure  you  all,  that  have  had  the  evill-lucke  to  reade 
this  incke-wasting  toy  of  mine,  even  in  the  name  of  the  nyne 
Muses,  no  more  to  scorn  the  sacred  misteries  of  Poesie :  no 
more  to  laugh  at  the  name  of  Poets,  as  though  they  were  next 
inheritours  to  Fooles :  no  more  to  jest  at  the  reverent  title  of 
a  Rymer :  but  to  beleeve  with  Aristotle,  that  they  were  the 
auncient  Treasurers  of  the  Graecians  Divinity.  To  beleeve  with 
Bcmbus,  that  they  were  first  bringers  in  of  all  civilitie.  To 
beleeve  with  Scaliger,  that  no  Philosophers  precepts  can  sooner 
make  you  an  honest  man  then  the  reading  of  Virgil!.  To  beleeve 
with  Clauserus,  the  Translator  of  Cornutus,  that  it  pleased  the 
heavenly  Deitie,  by  Hesiod  and  Homer,  under  the  vayle  of  fables, 
to  give  us  all  knowledge,  Logick,  Rethorick,  Philosophy,  naturall, 
and  morall ;  and  Quid  non?^  To  beleeve  with  me,  that  there 
are  many  misteries  contained  in  Poetrie,  which  of  purpose  were 
written  darkely,  least  by  prophane  wits  it  should  bee  abused.  To 
beleeve  with  Landin,  that  they  are  so  beloved  of  the  Gods  that 

81  gliding.         82  Pronounced  as  trisyllables,  as  in  Shakspere.          M  What  not? 


48  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

whatsoever  they  write  proceeds  of  a  divine  fury.  Lastly,  to 
beleeve  themselves,  when  they  tell  you  they  will  make  you  im- 
mortall  by  their  verses. 

Thus  doing,  your  name  shall  flourish  in  the  Printers  shoppes ; 
thus  doing,  you  shall  bee  of  kinne  to  many  a  poeticall  Preface ; 
thus  doing,  you  shall  bee  most  fayre,  most  ritch,  most  wise,  most 
all,  you  shall  dwell  upon  Superlatives.  Thus  dooing,  though  you 
be  Libertino  patre  nafus,84  you  shall  suddenly  grow  Hercules  \_Her- 

culis  ?  J  proles  : 35 

Si  quid  mea  carmina  possunt.36 

Thus  doing,  your  soule  shal  be  placed  with  Dantes  Beatrix,  or 
Virgils  Anchises.  But  if,  (fie  of  such  a  but)  you  be  borne  so 
neere  the  dull  making  Cataphract  of  Nilus,  that  you  cannot  heare 
trie  Plannet-like  Musick  of  Poetrie,  if  you  have  so  earth-creeping 
a  mind,  that  it  cannot  lift  it  selfe  up  to  looke  to  the  sky  of  Poetry  : 
or  rather,  by  a  certaine  rusticall  disdaine,  will  become  such  a 
Mome,37  as  to  be  a  Momus  of  Poetry :  then,  though  I  will  not 
wish  unto  you  the  Asses  eares  of  Midas,  nor  to  bee  driven  by  a 
Poets  verses,  (as  Bubonax™  was)  to  hang  himselfe,  nor  to  be 
rimed  to  death,  as  is  said  to  be  doone  in  Ireland : "  yet  thus 
much  curse  I  must  send  you,  in  the  behalfe  of  all  Poets,  that  while 
you  live,  you  live  in  love,  and  never  get  favour,  for  lacking  skill 
of  a  Sonnet :  and  when  you  die,  your  memory  die  from  the  earth, 
for  want  of  an  Epitaph. 

84  Born  of  a  freedman  father.  —  HORACE,  Satires,  I.  6,  45. 

85  The  offspring  of  Hercules. 

33  If  my  songs  avail.  — VIRGIL,  sEneid,  IX.  446. 
37  a  dull,  stupid  person. 

88  Cf.  Cook's  edition  of  Sidney's  Defense  of  Poesy,  p.  133. 

89  Cf.  As  You  Like  It,  III.  2,  188,  and  note  in  Furness'.s  Variorum  edition, 
P-  155- 


III. 

RICHARD    HOOKER. 

(1553-4—1600-) 

OF  THE  LAIVS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.    {BOOK  /.) 

[Written  about  1590.] 

X.   That  which  hitherto  we  have  set  down  is  (I  hope)  sufficient 
to  shew  their  brutishness,  which  imagine  that  religion 

How  reason  ° 

doth  lead  men  and  virtue  are  only  as  men  will  account  of  them ; 
unto  the  making  that  we  might  make  as  much  account,  if  we  would, 

of  human  laws 

whereby  politic  of  the  contrary,  without  any  harm  unto  ourselves, 
societies  are  gov-  an(j  that  jn  nature  they  are  as  indifferent  one  as  the 
agreement  about  other.  We  see  then  how  nature  itself  teacheth  laws 
laws  whereby  the  an(j  statutes  to  live  by.  The  laws  which  have  been 
communion°of  hitherto  mentioned  do  bind  men  absolutely  even  as 
independent  so-  they  are  men,  although  they  have  never  any  settled 

cieties  standeth.      rut.-  i 

fellowship,  never  any  solemn  agreement  amongst 
themselves  what  to  do  or  not  to  do.  But  forasmuch  as  we  are 
not  by  ourselves  sufficient  to  furnish  ourselves  with  competent 
store  of  things  needful  for  such  a  life  as  our  nature  doth  desire,  a 
life  fit  for  the  dignity  of  man ;  therefore  to  supply  those  defects 
and  imperfections  which  are  in  us  living  single  and  solely  by  our- 
selves, we  are  naturally  induced  to  seek  communion  and  fellowship 
with  others.  This  was  the  cause  of  men's  uniting  themselves  at 
the  first  in  politic  l  societies ;  which  societies  could  not  be  without 
government,  nor  government  without  a  distinct  kind  of  law  from 
that  which  hath  been  already  declared.  Two  foundations  there 

1  political. 

49 


50  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

are  which  bear  up  public  societies ;  the  one,  a  natural  inclination, 
whereby  all  men  desire  sociable  life  and  fellowship ;  the  other,  an 
order  expressly  or  secretly  agreed  upon  touching  the  manner  of 
their  union  in  living  together.  The  latter  is  that  which  we  call 
the  law  of  a  commonweal,  the  very  soul  of  a  politic  body,  the  parts 
whereof  are  by  law  animated,  held  together,  and  set  on  work  in 
such  actions  as  the  common  good  requireth.  Laws  politic,  or- 
dained for  external  order  and  regiment 2  amongst  men,  are  never 
framed  as  they  should  be,  unless  presuming  the  will  of  man  to  be 
inwardly  obstinate,  rebellious,  and  averse  from  all  obedience  unto 
the  sacred  laws  of  his  nature ;  in  a  word,  unless  presuming  man  to 
be  in  regard  of  his  depraved  mind  little  better  than  a  wild  beast, 
they  do  accordingly  provide  notwithstanding  so  to  frame  his  out- 
ward actions,  that  they  be  no  hindrance  unto  the  common  good 
for  which  societies  are  instituted  :  unless  they  do  this,  they  are 
not  perfect.  It  resteth  therefore  that  we  consider  how  nature 
findeth  out  such  laws  of  government  as  serve  to  direct  even  nature 
depraved  to  a  right  end. 

[2]  All  men  desire  to  lead  in  this  world  a  happy  life.  That 
life  is  led  most  happily,  wherein  all  virtue  is  exercised  without 
impediment  or  let.  The  Apostle,  in  exhorting  men  to  content- 
ment although  they  have  in  this  world  no  more  than  very  bare 
food  and  raiment,  giveth  us  thereby  to  understand  that  those  are 
even  the  lowest  of  things  necessary  ;  that  if  we  should  be  stripped 
of  all  those  things  without  which  we  might  possibly  be,  yet  these 
must  be  left ;  that  destitution  in  these  is  such  an  impediment,  as 
till  it  be  removed  suffereth  not  the  mind  of  man  to  admit  any 
other  care.  For  this  cause,  first  God  assigned  Adam  maintenance 
of  life,  and  then  appointed  him  a  law  to  observe.  For  this  cause, 
after  men  began  to  grow  to  a,  number,  the  first  thing  we  read  they 
gave  themselves  unto  was  the  tilling  of  the  earth  and  the  feeding 
of  cattle.  Having  by  this  mean  whereon  to  live,  the  principal 
actions  of  their  life  afterward  are  noted  by  the  exercise  of  their 

2  government. 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  51 

religion.  True  it  is,  that  the  kingdom  of  God  must  be  the  first 
thing  in  our  purposes  and  desires.  But  inasmuch  as  righteous 
life  presupposeth  life  ;  inasmuch  as  to  live  virtuously  it  is  impos- 
sible except  we  live  ;  therefore  the  first  impediment,  which  natu- 
rally we  endeavour  to  remove,  is  penury  and  want  of  things  without 
which  we  cannot  live.  Unto  life  many  implements3  are  necessary  ; 
moe,  if  we  seek  (as  all  men  naturally  do)  such  a  life  as  hath  in  it 
joy,  comfort,  delight,  and  pleasure.  To  this  end  we  see  how 
quickly  sundry  arts  mechanical  were  found  out,  in  the  very  prime 
of  the  world.  As  things  of  greatest  necessity  are  always  first  pro- 
vided for,  so  things  of  greatest  dignity  are  most  accounted  of  by 
all  such  as  judge  rightly.  Although  therefore  riches  be  a  thing 
which  every  man  wisheth,  yet  no  man  of  judgment  can  esteem  it 
better  to  be  rich,  than  wise,  virtuous,  and  religious.  If  we  be  both 
or  either  of  these,  it  is  not  because  we  are  so  born.  For  into  the 
world  we  come  as  empty  of  the  one  as  of  the  other,  as  naked  in 
mind  as  we  are  in  body.  Both  which  necessities  of  man  had  at 
the  first  no  other  helps  and  supplies  than  only  domestical ;  such 
as  that  which  the  Prophet  implieth,  saying,  Can  a  mother  forget 
//<-;•  child?*  such  as  that  which  the  Apostle  mentioneth,  saying, 
He  that  care  th  not  for  his  own  is  worse  than  an  Infidel  ;*  such 
as  that  concerning  Abraham,  Abraham  will  command  his  sons  and 
his  household  after  him,  that  they  keep  the  wav  of  the  Lord.6 

[3]  But  neither  that  which  we  learn  of  ourselves  nor  that  which 
others  teach  us  can  prevail,  where  wickedness  and  malice  have 
taken  deep  root.  If  therefore  when  there  was  but  as  yet  one  only 
family  in  the  world,  no  means  of  instruction  human  or  divine 
could  prevent  effusion  of  blood  ;  how  could  it  be  chosen  but  that 
when  families  were  multiplied  and  increased  upon  earth,  after 
separation  each  providing  for  itself,  envy,  strife,  contention,  and 
violence  must  grow  amongst  them?  For  hath  not  nature  fur- 
nished man  with  wit  and  valour,  as  it  were  with  armour,  which 
may  be  used  as  well  unto  extreme  evil  as  good  ?  Yea,  were  they 

8  accessories.         *  Isa.  xlix.  15.         5  i  Tim.  v.  8.         6  Gen.  xviii.  19. 


52  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

not  used  by  the  rest  of  the  world  unto  evil ;  unto  the  contrary 
only  by  Seth,  Enoch,  and  those  few  the  rest  in  that  line  ?  We  all 
make  complaint  of  the  iniquity  of  our  times  :  not  unjustly ;  for 
the  days  are  evil.  But  compare  them  with  those  times  wherein 
there  were  no  civil  societies,  with  those  times  wherein  there  was 
as  yet  no  manner  of  public  regiment  established,  with  those  times 
wherein  there  were  not  above  eight  persons  righteous  living  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  we  have  surely  good  cause  to  think 
that  God  hath  blessed  us  exceedingly,  and  hath  made  us  behold 
most  happy  days. 

[4]  To  take  away  all  such  mutual  grievances,  injuries,  and 
wrongs,  there  was  no  way  but  only  by  growing  unto  composition 
and  agreement  amongst  themselves,  by  ordaining  some  kind  of 
government  public,  and  by  yielding  themselves  subject  thereunto ; 
that  unto  whom  they  granted  authority  to  rule  and  govern,  by 
them  the  peace,  tranquillity,  and  happy  estate  of  the  rest  might  be 
procured.  Men  always  knew  that  when  force  and  injury  was7 
offered  they  might  be  defenders  of  themselves ;  they  knew  that 
howsoever  men  may  seek  their  own  commodity,8  yet  if  this  were 
done  with  injury  unto  others  it  was  not  to  be  suffered,  but  by  all 
men  and  by  all  good  means  to  be  withstood ;  finally  they  knew 
that  no  man  might  in  reason  take  upon  him  to  determine  his  own 
right,  and  according  to  his  own  determination  proceed  in  mainte- 
nance thereof,  inasmuch  as  every  man  is  towards  himself  and 
them  whom  he  greatly  affecteth  partial ;  and  therefore  that  strifes 
and  troubles  would  be  endless,  except  they  gave  their  common 
consent  all  to  be  ordered  by  some  whom  they  should  agree  upon : 
without  which  consent  there  was  no  reason  that  one  man  should 
take  upon  him  to  be  lord  or  judge  over  another ;  because,  although 
there  be  according  to  the  opinion  of  some  very  great  and  judicious 
men  a  kind  of  natural  right  in  the  noble,  wise,  and  virtuous,  to 
govern  them  which  are  of  servile  disposition ;  nevertheless  for 
manifestation  of  this  their  right,  and  men's  more  peaceable  con- 

7  Subjects  connected  by  and  with  singular  verb,  as  often.         8  advantage. 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  53 

tention  on  both  sides,  the  assent  of  them  who  are.  to  be  governed 
seemeth  necessary. 

To  fathers  within  their  private  families  nature  hath  given  a 
supreme  power ;  for  which  cause  we  see  throughout  the  world 
even  from  the  foundation  thereof,  all  men  have  ever  been  taken 
as  lords  and  lawful  kings  in  their  own  houses.  Howbeit  over  a 
whole  grand  multitude  having  no  such  dependency  upon  any  one, 
and  consisting  of  so  many  families  as  every  politic  society  in  the 
world  doth,  impossible  it  is  that  any  should  have  complete  lawful 
power,  but  by  consent  of  men,  or  immediate  appointment  of  God  ; 
because  not  having  the  natural  superiority  of  fathers,  their  power 
must  needs  be  either  usurped,  and  then  unlawful ;  or,  if  lawful, 
then  either  granted  or  consented  unto  by  them  over  whom  they 
exercise  the  same,  or  else  given  extraordinarily  from  God,  unto 
whom  all  the  world  is  subject.  It  is  no  improbable  opinion  there- 
fore which  the  Arch-philosopher9  was  of,  that  as  the  chiefest 
person  in  every  household  was  always  as  it  were  a  king,  so  when 
numbers  of  households  joined  themselves  in  civil  society  together, 
kings  were  the  first  kind  of  governors  amongst  them.  Which  is 
also  (as  it  seemeth)  the  reason  why  the  name  of  Father  continued 
still  in  them,  who  of  fathers  were  made  rulers ;  as  also  the  ancient 
custom  of  governors  to  do  as  Melchisedec,  and  being  kings  to 
exercise  the  office  of  priests,  which  fathers  did  at  the  first,  grew 
perhaps  by  the  same  occasion. 

Howbeit  not  this10  the  only  kind  of  regiment  that  hath  been 
received  in  the  world.  The  inconveniences  of  one  kind  have 
caused  sundry  other  to  be  devised.  So  that  in  a  word  all  public 
regiment  of  what  kind  soever  seemeth  evidently  to  have  risen  from 
deliberate  advice,  consultation,  and  composition  between  men, 
judging  it  convenient  and  behoveful ;  there  being  no  impossibility 
in  nature  c6nsidered  by  itself,  but  that  men  might  have  lived  with- 
out any  public  regiment.  Howbeit,  the  corruption  of  our  nature 
being  presupposed,  we  may  not  deny  but  that  the  law  of  nature 

9  Aristotle.  10  Substantive  verb  omitted. 


54  RICHARD   HOOKER. 

doth  now  require  of  necessity  some  kind  of  regiment ;  so  that  to 
bring  things  unto  the  first  course  they  were  in,  and  utterly  to  take 
away  all  kind  of  public  government  in  the  world,  were  apparently 
to  overturn  the  whole  world. 

[5]  The  case  of  man's  nature  standing  therefore  as  it  doth, 
some  kind  of  regiment  the  law  of  nature  doth  require ;  yet  the 
kinds  thereof  being  many,  nature  tieth  not  to  any  one,  but  leaveth 
the  choice  as  a  thing  arbitrary.  At  the  first  when  some  certain 
kind  of  regiment  was  once  approved,  it  may  be  that  nothing  was 
then  further  thought  upon  for  the  manner  of  governing,  but  all 
permitted  unto  their  wisdom  and  discretion  which  were  to  rule ; 
till  by  experience  they  found  this  for  all  parts  very  inconvenient, 
so  as  the  thing  which  they  had  devised  for  a  remedy  did  indeed 
but  increase  the  sore  which  it  should  have  cured.  They  saw  that 
to  live  by  one  man's  will  became  the  cause  of  all  men's  misery. 
This  constrained  them  to  come  unto  laws,  wherein  all  men  might 
see  their  duties  beforehand,  and  know  the  penalties  of  transgress- 
ing them.  If  things  be  simply  good  or  evil,  and  withal  universally 
so  acknowledged,  there  needs  no  new  law  to  be  made  for  such 
things.  The  first  kind  therefore  of  things  appointed  by  laws 
human  containeth  whatsoever  being  in  itself  naturally  good  or  evil, 
is  notwithstanding  more  secret  than  that  it  can  be  discerned  by 
every  man's  present  conceit,  without  some  deeper  discourse  and 
judgment.  In  which  discourse  because  there  is  difficulty  and 
possibility  many  ways  to  err,  unless  such  things  were  set  down  by 
laws,  many  would  be  ignorant  of  their  duties  which  now  are  not, 
and  many  that  know  what  they  should  do  would  nevertheless  dis- 
semble it,  and  to  excuse  themselves  pretend  ignorance  and  sim- 
plicity, which  now  they  cannot. 

[6]  And  because  the  greatest  part  of  men  are  such  as  prefer 
their  own  private  good  before  all  things,  even  that  good  which 
is  sensual  before  whatsoever  is  most  divine ;  and  for  that  the 
labour  of  doing  good,  together  with  the  pleasure  arising  from  the 
contrary,  doth  make  men  for  the  most  part  slower  to  the  one 
and  proner  to  the  other,  than  that  duty  prescribed  them  by  law 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  55 

can  prevail  sufficiently  with  them  :  therefore  unto  laws  that  men 
do  make  for  the  benefit  of  men  it  hath  seemed  always  needful 
to  add  rewards,  which  may  more  allure  unto  good  than  any 
hardness  deterreth  from  it,  and  punishments,  which  may  more 
deter  from  evil,  than  any  sweetness  thereto  allureth.  Wherein 
as  the  generality n  is  natural,  Virtue  rewardable  and  vice  pun- 
ishable;  so  the  particular  determination  of  the  reward  or  pun- 
ishment belongeth  unto  them  by  whom  laws  are  made.  Theft  is 
naturally  punishable,  but  the  kind  of  punishment  is  positive,  and 
such  lawful  as  men  shall  think  with  discretion  convenient  by  law 
to  appoint. 

[7]  In  laws,  that  which  is  natural  bindeth  universally,  that  which 
is  positive  not  so.  To  let  go  those  kind 12  of  positive  laws  which 
men  impose  upon  themselves,  as  by  vow  unto  God,  contract  with 
men,  or  such  like ;  somewhat  it  will  make  unto  our  purpose,  a 
little  more  fully  to  consider  what  things  are  incident  into  the 
making  of  the  positive  laws  for  the  government  of  them  that  live 
united  in  public  society.  Laws  do  not  only  teach  what  is  good, 
but  they  enjoin  it,  they  have  in  them  a  certain  constraining  force. 
And  to  constrain  men  unto  anything  inconvenient  doth  seem 
unreasonable.  Most  requisite  therefore  it  is  that  to  devise  laws 
which  all  men  shall  be  forced  to  obey,  none  but  wise  men  be  ad- 
mitted. Laws  are  matters  of  principal  consequence ;  men  of 
common  capacity  and  but  ordinary  judgment  are  not  able  (for 
how  should  they  ?)  to  discern  what  things  are  fittest  for  each  kind 
and  state  of  regiment.  We  cannot  be  ignorant  how  much  our 
obedience  unto  laws  dependeth  upon  this  point.  Let  a  man, 
though  never  so  justly,  oppose  himself  unto  them  that  are  dis- 
ordered in  their  ways,  and  what  one  amongst  them  commonly 
doth  not  stomach  at  such  contradiction,  storm  at  reproof,  and 
hate  such  as  would  reform  them?  Notwithstanding  even  they 
which  brook  it  worst  that  men  should  tell  them  of  their  duties, 
when  they  are  told  the  same  by  a  law,  think  very  well  and  reason- 

11  general  proposition.  ia  Common  in  Elizabethan  English. 


56  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

ably  of  it.  For  why?  They  presume  that  the  law  doth  speak 
with  all  indifferency ;  that  the  law  hath  no  side-respect  to  their 
persons ;  that  the  law  is  as  it  were  an  oracle  proceeded  from 
wisdom  and  understanding. 

[8]  Howbeit  laws  do  not  take  their  constraining  force  from  the 
quality  of  such  as  devise  them,  but  from  that  power  which  doth 
give  them  the  strength  of  laws.  That  which  we  spake  before  con- 
cerning the  power  of  government  must  here  be  applied  unto  the 
power  of  making  laws  whereby  to  govern  ;  which  power  God  hath 
over  all :  and  by  the  natural  law,  whereunto  he  hath  made  all 
subject,  the  lawful  power  of  making  laws  to  command  whole  politic 
societies  of  men  belongeth  so  properly  unto  the  same  entire  socie- 
ties, that  for  any  prince  or  potentate  of  what  kind  soever  upon 
earth  to  exercise  the  same  of  himself,  and  not  either  by  express 
commission  immediately  and  personally  received  from  God,  or 
else  by  authority  derived  at  the  first  from  their  consent  upon 
whose  persons  they  impose  laws,  it  is  no  better  than  mere 
tyranny. 

Laws  they  are  not  therefore  which  public  approbation  hath  not 
made  so.  But  approbation  not  only  they  give  who  personally 
declare  their  assent  by  voice,  sign,  or  act,  but  also  when  others 
do  it  in  their  names  by  right  originally  at  the  least  derived  from 
them.  As  in  parliaments,  councils,  and  the  like  assemblies, 
although  we  be  not  personally  ourselves  present,  notwithstanding 
our  assent  is,  by  reason  of  others,  agents  there  in  our  behalf.  And 
what  we  do  by  others,  no  reason  w  but  that  it  should  stand  as  our 
deed,  no  less  effectually  to  bind  us  than  if  ourselves  had  done  it 
in  person.  In  many  things  assent  is  given,  they  that  give  it  not 
imagining  they  do  so,  because  the  manner  of  their  assenting  is 
not  apparent.  As  for  example,  when  an  absolute  monarch  com- 
mandeth  his  subjects  that  which  seemeth  good  in  his  own  dis- 
cretion, hath  not  his  edict  the  force  of  a  law  whether  they  approve 
or  dislike  it  ?  Again,  that  which  hath  been  received  long  sithence  M 

18  Substantive  verb  omitted.  M  since. 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  57 

and  is  by  custom  now  established,  we  keep  as  a  law  which  we  may 
not  transgress ;  yet  what  consent  was  ever  thereunto  sought  or 
required  at  our  hands  ? 

Of  this  point  therefore  we  are  to  note,  that  sith  u  men  naturally 
have  no  full  and  perfect  power  to  command  whole  politic  multi- 
tudes of  men,  therefore  utterly  without  our  consent  we  could  in 
such  sort  be  at  no  man's  commandment  living.  And  to  be  com- 
manded we  do  consent,  when  that  society  whereof  we  are  part 
hath  at  any  time  before  consented,  without  revoking  the  same 
after  by  the  like  universal  agreement.  Wherefore  as  any  man's 
deed  past  is  good  as  long  as  himself  continueth ;  so  the  act  of  a 
public  society  of  men  done  five  hundred  years  sithence  standeth 
as  theirs  who  presently  are  of  the  same  societies,  because  corpora- 
tions are  immortal ;  we  were  then  alive  in  our  predecessors,  and 
they  in  their  successors  do  live  still.  Laws  therefore  human,  of 
what  kind  soever,  are  available  by  consent. 

[9]  If  here  it  be  demanded  how  it  cometh  to  pass  that,  this 
being  common  unto  all  laws  which  are  made,  there  should  be 
found  even  in  good  laws  so  great  a  variety  as  there  is ;  we  must 
note  the  reason  hereof  to  be  the  sundry  particular  ends,  where- 
unto  the  different  disposition  of  that  subject  or  matter,  for  which 
laws  are  provided,  causeth  them  to  have  especial  respect  in  making 
laws.  A  law  there  is  mentioned  amongst  the  Grecians  whereof 
Pittacus  is  reported  to  have  been  the  author ;  and  by  that  law  it 
was  agreed,  that  he  which  being  overcome  with  drink  did  then 
strike  any  man,  should  suffer  punishment  double  as  much  as  if  he 
had  done  the  same  being  sober.  No  man  could  ever  have  thought 
this  reasonable,  that  had  intended  thereby  only  to  punish  the 
injury  committed  according  to  the  gravity  of  the  fact :  for  who 
knoweth  not  that  harm  advisedly  done  is  naturally  less  pardonable, 
and  therefore  worthy  of  the  sharper  punishment  ?  But  forasmuch 
as  none  did  so  usually  this  way  offend  as  men  in  that  case,  which 
they  wittingly  fell  into,  even  because  they  would  be  so  much  the 
more  freely  outrageous ;  it  was  for  their  public  good,  where  such 
disorder  was  grown,  to  frame  a  positive  law  for  remedy  thereof 


58  '  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

accordingly.  To  this  appertain  those  known  laws  of  making  laws  ; 
as  that  law-makers  must  have  an  eye  to  the  place  where,  and  to 
the  men  amongst  whom  :  that  one  kind  of  laws  cannot  serve  for 
all  kinds  of  regiment :  that  where  the  multitude  beareth  sway, 
laws  that  shall  tend  unto  preservation  of  that  state  must  make 
common  smaller  offices  to  go  by  lot,  for  fear  of  strife  and  division 
likely  to  arise,  by  reason  that,  ordinary  qualities  sufficing  for  dis- 
charge of  such  offices,  they  could  not  but  by  many  be  desired,  and 
so  with  danger  contended  for,  and  not  missed  without  grudge  and 
discontentment,  whereas  at  an  uncertain  lot  none  can  find  them- 
selves grieved,  on  whomsoever  it  lighteth  ;  contrariwise  the  greatest, 
whereof  but  few  are  capable,  to  pass  by  popular  election,  that 
neither  the  people  may  envy  such  as  have  those  honours,  inasmuch 
as  themselves  bestow  them,  and  that  the  chiefest  may  be  kindled 
with  desire  to  exercise  all  parts  of  rare  and  beneficial  virtue, 
knowing  they  shall  not  lose  their  labour  by  growing  in  fame  and 
estimation  amongst  the  people  :  if  the  helm  of  chief  government 
be  in  the  hands  of  a  few  of  the  wealthiest,  that  then  laws  providing 
for  continuance  thereof  must  make  the  punishment  of  contumely 
and  wrong  offered  unto  any  of  the  common  sort  sharp  and  griev- 
ous, that  so  the  evil  may  be  prevented  whereby  the  rich  are  most 
likely  to  bring  themselves  into  hatred  with  the  people,  who  are 
not  wont  to  take  so  great  an  offence  when  they  are  excluded  from 
honours  and  offices,  as  when  their  persons  are  contumeliously 
trodden  upon.  In  other  kinds  of  regiment  the  like  is  observed 
concerning  the  difference  of  positive  laws,  which  to  be  every  where 
the  same  is  impossible  and  against  their  nature. 

[10]  Now  as  the  learned  in  the  laws  of  this  land  observe  that 
our  statutes  sometimes  are  only  the  affirmation  or  ratification  of 
that  which  by  common  law  was  held  before  ;  so  here  it  is  not  to 
be  omitted  that  generally  all  laws  human,  which  are  made  for  the 
ordering  of  politic  societies,  be  either  such  as  establish  some  duty 
whereunto  all  men  by  the  law  of  reason  did  before  stand  bound  ; 
or  else  such  as  make  that  a  duty  now  which  before  was  none. 
The  one  sort  we  may  for  distinction's  sake  call  mixedly,  and  the 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL   POLITY.  59 

other  merely  human.  That  which  plain  or  necessary  reason  bindeth 
men  unto  may  be  in  sundry  considerations  expedient  to  be  ratified 
by  human  law.  For  example,  if  confusion  of  blood  in  marriage, 
the  liberty  of  having  many  wives  at  once,  or  any  other  the  like 
corrupt  and  unreasonable  custom  doth  happen  to  have  prevailed 
far,  and  to  have  gotten  the  upper  hand  of  right  reason  with  the 
greatest  part,  so  that  no  way  is  left  to  rectify  such  foul  disorder 
without  prescribing  by  law  the  same  things  which  reason  neces- 
sarily doth  enforce  but  is  not  perceived  that  so  it  doth ;  or  if  many 
be  grown  unto  that  which  the  Apostle  did  lament  in  some,  con- 
cerning whom  he  writeth,  saying,  that  Even  what  things  they 
naturally  knoiu,  in  those  very  things  as  beasts  void  of  reason  they 
corrupted  themselves ; 15  or  if  there  be  no  such  special  accident, 
yet  forasmuch  as  the  common  sort  are  led  by  the  sway  of  their 
sensual  desires,  and  therefore  do  more  shun  sin  for  the  sensible 
evils  which  follow  it  amongst  men,  than  for  any  kind  of  sentence 
which  reason  doth  pronounce  against  it ;  this  very  thing  is  cause 
sufficient  why  dutiqs  belonging  unto  such  kind  of  virtue,  albeit 
the  law  of  reason  teach  them,  should  notwithstanding  be  prescribed 
even  by  human  law.  Which  law  in  this  case  we  term  mixed,  be- 
cause the  matter  whereunto  it  bindeth  is  the  same  which  reason 
necessarily  doth  require  at  our  hands,  and  from  the  law  of  reason 
it  differeth  in  the  manner  of  binding  only.  For  whereas  men 
before  stood  bound  in  conscience  to  do  as  the  law  of  reason 
teacheth,  they  are  now  by  virtue  of  human  law  become  constrain- 
able,  and  if  they  outwardly  transgress,  punishable.  As  for  laws 
which  are  merely  human,  the  matter  of  them  is  any  thing  which 
reason  doth  but  probably  teach  to  be  fit  and  convenient ;  so  that 
till  such  time  as  law  hath  passed  amongst  men  about  it,  of  itself 
it  bindeth  no  man.  One  example  whereof  may  be  this.  Lands 
are  by  human  law  in  some  places  after  the  owner's  decease  divided 
unto  all  his  children,  in  some  all  descendeth  to  the  eldest  son. 
If  the  law  of  reason  did  necessarily  require  but  the  one  of  these 

16  Jude  10. 


60  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

two  to  be  done,  they  which  by  law  have  received  the  other  should 
be  subject  to  that  heavy  sentence,  which  denounceth  against  all 
that  decree  wicked,  unjust,  and  unreasonable  things,  woe.  Whereas 
now  whichsoever  be  received,  there  is  no  law  of  reason  trans- 
gressed ;  because  there  is  probable  reason  why  either  of  them 
may  be  expedient,  and  for  either  of  them  more  than  probable 
reason  there  is  not  to  be  found. 

[u]  Laws  whether  mixedly  or  merely  human  are  made  by 
politic  societies  :  some,  only  as  those  societies  are  civilly  united  ; 
some,  as  they  are  spiritually  joined  and  make  such  a  body  as.  we 
call  the  Church.  Of  laws  human  in  this  later  kind  we  are  to  speak 
in  the  third  book  following.  Let  it  therefore  suffice  thus  far  to 
have  touched  the  force  wherewith  Almighty  God  hath  graciously 
endued  our  nature,  and  thereby  enabled  the  same  to  find  out  both 
those  laws  which  all  men  generally  are  for  ever  bound  to  observe, 
and  also  such  as  are  most  fit  for  their  behoof,  who  lead  their  lives 
in  any  ordered  state  of  government. 

[12]  Now  besides  that  law  which  simply  concerneth  men  as 
men,  and  that  which  belongeth  unto  them  as  they  are  men  linked 
with  others  in  some  form  of  politic  society,  there  is  a  third  kind 
of  law  which  toucheth  all  such  several  bodies  politic,  so  far  forth 
as  one  of  them  hath  public  commerce  with  another.  And  this 
third  is  the  law  of  nations.  Between  men  and  beasts  there  is  no 
possibility  of  sociable  communion ;  because  the  well-spring  of 
that  communion  is  a  natural  delight  which  man  hath  to  transfuse 
from  himself  unto  others,  and  to  receive  from  others  into  himself, 
especially  those  things  wherein  the  excellency  of  his  kind  doth 
most  consist.  The  chiefest  instrument  of  human  communion  there- 
fore is  speech,  because  thereby  we  impart  mutually  one  to  another 
the  conceits  of  our  reasonable  understanding.  And  for  that  cause 
seeing  beasts  are  not  hereof  capable,  forasmuch  as  with  them  we 
can  use  no  such  conference,  they  being  in  degree,  although  above 
other  creatures  on  earth  to  whom  nature  hath  denied  sense,  yet 
lower  than  to  be  sociable  companions  of  man  to  whom  nature  hath 
given  reason ;  it  is  of  Adam  said  that  amongst  the  beasts  He  found 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  61 

not  for  himself  any  meet  companion™  Civil  society  doth  more 
content  the  nature  of  man  than  any  private  kind  of  solitary  living, 
because  in  society  this  good  of  mutual  participation  is  so  much 
larger  than  otherwise.  Herewith  notwithstanding  we  are  satisfied, 
but  we  covet  (if  it  might  be)  to  have  a  kind  of  society  and  fellow- 
ship even  with  all  mankind.  Which  thing  Socrates  intending  to 
signify  professed  himself  a  citizen,  not  of  this  or  that  common- 
wealth, but  of  the  world.  And  an  effect  of  that  very  natural  desire 
in  us,  (a  manifest  token  that  we  wish  after  a  sort  an  universal 
fellowship  with  all  men,)  appeareth  by  the  wonderful  delight  men 
have,  some  to  visit  foreign  countries,  some  to  discover  nations  not 
heard  of  in  former  ages,  we  all  to  know  the  affairs  and  dealings  of 
other  people,  yea  to  be  in  league  of  amity  with  them  :  and  this 
not  only  for  traffic's  sake,  or  to  the  end  that  when  many  are  con- 
federated each  may  make  the  other  the  more  strong,  but  for  such 
cause  also  as  moved  the  Queen  of  Saba  to  visit  Salomon ; 17  and 
in  a  word,  because  nature  doth  presume  that  how  many  men  there 
are  in  the  world,  so  many  Gods  as  it  were  there  are,  or  at  least- 
wise such  they  should  be  towards  men. 

[13]  Touching18  laws  which  are  to  serve  men  in  this  behalf; 
even  as  those  laws  of  reason,  which  (man  retaining  his  original 
integrity)  had  been  sufficient  to  direct  each  particular  person  in 
all  his  affairs  and  duties,  are  not  sufficient  but  require  the  access 
of  other  laws,  now  that  man  and  his  offspring  are  grown  thus  cor- 
rupt and  sinful ;  again,  as  those  laws  of  polity  and  regiment,  which 
would  have  served  men  living  in  public  society  together  with  that 
harmless  disposition  which  then  they  should  have  had,  are  not 
able  now  to  serve,  when  men's  iniquity  is  so  hardly  restrained 
within  any  tolerable  bounds  :  in  like  manner,  the  national  laws  of 
mutual  commerce  between  societies  of  that  former  and  better 
quality  might  have  been  other  than  now,  when  nations  are  so 
prone  to  offer  violence,  injury,  and  wrong.  Hereupon  hath  grown 
in  every  of  these  three  kinds  that  distinction  between  Primary 

16  Gen.  ii.  20.  17  I  Kings  x.  I.  18  i.e.,  to  consider,  treat  of. 


62  RICHARD   HOOKER. 

and  Secondary  laws ;  the  one  grounded  upon  sincere,  the  other 
built  upon  depraved  nature.  Primary  laws  of  nations  are  such  as 
concern  ernbassage,  such  as  belong  to  the  courteous  entertainment 
of  foreigners  and  strangers,  such  as  serve  for  commodious  traffic, 
and  the  like.  Secondary  laws  in  the  same  kind  are  such  as  this 
present  unquiet  world  is  most  familiarly  acquainted  with  ;  I  mean 
laws  of  arms,  which  yet  are  much  better  known  than  kept.  But 
what  matter  the  law  of  nations  doth  contain  I  omit  to  search. 

The  strength  and  virtue  of  that  law  is  such  that  no  particular 
nation  can  lawfully  prejudice  the  same  by  any  their  several  laws 
and  ordinances,  more  than  a  man  by  his  private  resolutions  the 
law  of  the  whole  commonwealth  or  state  wherein  he  liveth.  For 
as  civil  law,  being  the  act  of  the  whole  body  politic,  doth  therefore 
overrule  each  several  part  of  the  same  body  ;  so  there  is  no  reason 
that  any  one  commonwealth  of  itself  should  to  the  prejudice  of 
another  annihilate  that  whereupon  the  world  hath  agreed.  For 
which  cause,  the  Lacedemonians  forbidding  all  access  of  strangers 
into  their  coasts  are  in  that  respect  both  by  Josephus  and  Theo- 
doret  deservedly  blamed,  as  being  enemies  to  that  hospitality 
which  for  common  humanity's  sake  all  the  nations  on  earth  should 
embrace. 

[14]  Now  as  there  is  great  cause  of  communion,  and  conse- 
quently of  laws  for  the  maintenance  of  communion,  amongst 
nations ;  so  amongst  nations  Christian  the  like  in  regard  even  of 
Christianity  hath  been  always  judged  needful. 

And  in  this  kind  of  correspondence  amongst  nations  the  force 
of  general  councils  doth  stand.  For  as  one  and  the  same  law 
divine,  whereof  in  the  next  place  we  are  to  speak,  is  unto  all 
Christian  churches  a  rule  for  the  chiefest  things,  by  means  whereof 
they  all  in  that  respect  make  one  Church,  as  having  all  but  One 
Lord,  one  faith,  and  one  baptism  : 1<J  so  the  urgent  necessity  of 
mutual  communion  for  preservation  of  our  unity  in  these  things, 
as  also  for  order  in  some  other  things  convenient  to  be  everywhere 

19  Ephes.  iv.  5. 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  63 

uniformly  kept,  maketh  it  requisite  that  the  Church  of  God  here 
on  earth  have  her  laws  of  spiritual  commerce  between  Christian 
nations  ;  laws  by  virtue  whereof  all  churches  may  enjoy  freely  the 
use  of  those  reverend,  religious,  and  sacred  consultations,  which 
are  termed  councils  general.  A  thing  whereof  God's  own  blessed 
Spirit  was  the  author;  a  thing  practised  by  the  holy  Apostles 
themselves  ;  a  thing  always  afterwards  kept  and  observed  through- 
out the  world  ;  a  thing  never  otherwise  than  most  highly  esteemed 
of,  till  pride,  ambition,  and  tyranny  began  by  factious  and  vile 
endeavours  to  abuse  that  divine  invention  unto  the  furtherance  of 
wicked  purposes.  But  as  the  just  authority  of  civil  courts  and 
parliaments  is  not  therefore  to  be  abolished,  because  sometime 
there  is  cunning  used  to  frame  them  according  to  the  private 
intents  of  men  overpotent  in  the  commonwealth  ;  so  the  grievous 
abuse  which  hath  been  of  councils  should  rather  cause  men  to 
study  how  so  gracious  a  thing  may  again  be  reduced  to  that  first 
perfection,  than  in  regard  of  stains  and  blemishes  sithence  growing 
be  held  for  ever  in  extreme  disgrace. 

To  speak  of  this  matter  as  the  cause  requireth  would  require 
very  long  discourse.  All  I  will  presently  say  is  this.  Whether  it 
be  for  the  finding  out  of  any  thing  whereunto  divine  law  bindeth 
us,  but  yet  in  such  sort  that  men  are  not  thereof  on  all  sides 
resolved ;  or  for  the  setting  down  of  some  uniform  judgment  to 
stand  touching  such  things,  as  being  neither  way  matters  of  neces- 
sity, are  notwithstanding  offensive  and  scandalous  when  there  is 
open  opposition  about  them ;  be  it  for  the  ending  of  strifes  touch- 
ing matters  of  Christian  belief,  wherein  the  one  part  may  seem  to 
have  probable  cause  of  dissenting  from  the  other ;  or  be  it  con- 
cerning matters  of  polity,  order,  and  regiment  in  the  church ;  I 
nothing  doubt  but  that  Christian  men  should  much  better  frame 
themselves  to  those  heavenly  precepts,  which  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
with  so  great  instancy  gave20  as  concerning  peace  and  unity,  if 
we  did  all  concur  in  desire  to  have  the  use  of  ancient  councils 

20  John  xiv.  27. 


64  RICHARD  HOOKER. 

again  renewed,  rather  than  these  proceedings  continued,  which 
either  make  all  contentions  endless,  or  bring  them  to  one  only 
determination,  and  that  of  all  other  the  worst,  which  is  by  sword. 

[15]  It  followeth  therefore  that  a  new  foundation  being  laid, 
we  now  adjoin  hereunto  that  which  cometh  in  the  next  place  to 
be  spoken  of;  namely,  wherefore  God  hath  himself  by  scripture 
made  known  such  laws  as  serve  for  direction  of  men. 


XI.  [6]  From  salvation  therefore  and  life  all  flesh  being  ex- 
cluded this  way,  behold  how  the  wisdom  of  God  hath  revealed  a 
way  mystical  and  supernatural,  a  way  directing  unto  the  same  end 
of  life  by  a  course  which  groundeth  itself  upon  the  guiltiness  of 
sin,  and  through  sin  desert  of  condemnation  and  death.  For  in 
this  way  the  first  thing  is  the  tender  compassion  of  God  respecting 
us  drowned  and  swallowed  up  in  misery ;  the  next  is  redemption 
out  of  the  same  by  the  precious  death  and  merit  of  a  mighty 
Saviour,  which  hath  witnessed  of  himself,  saying,  I  am  the  way,21 
the  way  that  leadeth  us  from  misery  into  bliss.  This  super- 
natural way  had  God  in  himself  prepared  before  all  worlds.  The 
way  of  supernatural  duty  which  to  us  he  hath  prescribed,  our 
Saviour  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  doth  note,  terming  it  by  an 
excellency,  the  work  of  God ;  This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye 
believe  in  him  whom  he  hath  sent?*  Not  that  God  doth  require 
nothing  unto  happiness  at  the  hands  of  men  saving  only  a  naked 
belief,  for  hope  and  charity  we  may  not  exclude ;  but  that  without 
belief  all  other  things  are  as  nothing,  and  it  the  ground  of  those 
other  divine  virtues. 

Concerning  faith,  the  principal  object  whereof  is  that  eternal 
verity  which  hath  discovered  the  treasures  of  hidden  wisdom  in 
Christ ;  concerning  hope,  the  highest  object  whereof  is  that  ever- 
lasting goodness  which  in  Christ  doth  quicken  the  dead  ;  concern- 
ing charity,  the  final  object  whereof  is  that  incomprehensible 

21  John  xiv.  6.  &  John  vi.  29. 


OF  THE  LAWS   OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY.  65 

beauty  which  shineth  in  the  countenance  of  Christ  the  Son  of  the 
living  God  :  concerning  these  virtues,  the  first  of  which  beginning 
here  with  a  weak  apprehension  of  things  not  seen,  endeth  with 
the  intuitive  vision  of  God  in  the  world  to  come;  the  second 
beginning  here  with  a  trembling  expectation  of  things  far  removed 
and  as  yet  but  only  heard  of,  endeth  with  real  and  actual  fruition 
of  that  which  no  tongue  can  express ;  the  third  beginning  here 
with  a  weak  inclination  of  heart  towards  him  unto  whom  we  are 
not  able  to  approach,  endeth  with  endless  union,  the  mystery 
whereof  is  higher  than  the  reach  of  the  thoughts  of  men  ;  concern- 
ing that  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  without  which  there  can  be  no 
salvation,  was  there  ever  any  mention  made  saving  only  in  that 
law  which  God  himself  hath  from  heaven  revealed  ?  There  is  not 
in  the  world  a  syllable  muttered  with  certain  truth  concerning  any 
of  these  three,  more  than  hath  been  supernaturally  received  from 
the  mouth  of  the  eternal  God. 

Laws  therefore  concerning  these  things  are  supernatural,  both 
in  respect  of  the  manner  of  delivering  them,  which  is  divine  ;  and 
also  in  regard  of  the  things  delivered,  which  are  such  as  have  not 
in  nature  any  cause  from  which  they  flow,  but  were  by  the  volun- 
tary appointment  of  God  ordained  besides  the  course  of  nature, 
to  rectify  nature's  obliquity  withal. 


XVI.  [8]  Wherefore  that  here  we  may  briefly  end  :  of  Law 
there  can  be  no  less  acknowledged  than  that  her  seat  is  the 
bosom  of  God,  her  voice  the  harmony  of  the  world  ;  all  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  do  her  homage,  the  very  least  as  feeling  her 
care,  and  the  greatest  as  not  exempted  from  her  power;  both 
Angels  and  men  and  creatures  of  what  condition  soever,  though 
each  in  different  sort  and  manner,  yet  all  with  uniform  consent, 
admiring  her  as  the  mother  of  their  peace  and  joy.23 

23  Book  I.  closes  with  this  grand  peroration,  this  "  celebrated  sentence," 
as  1  lallam  calls  it.  (See  note  in  Church's  Clarendon  Press  edition.) 


IV. 

FRANCIS    BACON. 

(1561—1626.) 

1.    THE  ESS  AYES  OR  COUNSELS,  CIVILL  AND  MORALL, 
OF  FRANCIS  LO.  VERULAM,  VISCOUNT  ST.  ALBAN. 

OF  RELIGION.     (1612.) 

ENLARGED  AND  TITLE  CHANGED  TO 

OF  UNITY  IN  RELIGION.     (1625.) 

i.    Of  Religion. 

THE  quarrels  and  divisions  for  Religion  were  evils  unknowne  to 
the  Heathen  :  and  no  marvell ;  for  it  is  the  true  God  that  is  the 
jealous  God;  and  the  gods  of  the  Heathen  were  good  fellowes. 
But  yet  the  bonds  of  religious  unity  are  so  to  be  strengthened,  as 
the  bonds  of  humane  society  be  not  dissolved. 

Lucretius  the  Poet,  when  hee  beheld  the  act  of  Agamemnon, 
induring  and  assisting  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  daughter,  concludes 

with  this  verse : 

Tantum  relligio  potuit  sitadere  malorum?- 

But  what  would  hee  have  done,  if  he  had  knowne  the  massacre  of 
France,2  or  the  powder  treason  of  England 73  Certainly  he  would 
have  been  seven  times  more  Epicure  and  Atheist  then  he  was. 
Nay,  hee  would  rather  have  chosen  to  be  one  of  the  Mad  men  of 
Munster,  then  to  have  beene  a  partaker  of  those  Counsels.  For 
it  is  better  that  Religion  should  deface  mens  understanding,  then 
their  piety  and  charitie  ;  retaining  reason  onely  but  as  an  Engine 
and  Charriot  driver  of  cruelty  and  malice. 

1  To  such  evils  could  Religion  induce  men. —  LUCRETIUS,  De  rerum  Natura, 
I.  1 02.  a  August  24,  1572.  8  November  5,  1605. 

66 


THE  ESS  A  YES   OF  VISCOUNT  ST.   A  LEAN.  67 

It  was  a  great  blasphemie,  when  the  Divell  said  ;  I  will  ascend, 
and  be  like  the  highest : M  but  it  is  a  greater  blasphemie,  if  they 
make  God  to  say  ;  I  will  descend,  and  bee  like  the  Prince  of  Dark- 
nesse :  and  it  is  no  better,  when  they  make  the  cause  of  Religion 
descend  to  the  execrable  accions  of  murthering  of  Princes,  butch- 
ery of  people,  and  firing  of  States.  Neither  is  there  such  a  sinne 
against  the  person  of  the  holy  Ghost,  (if  one  should  take  it  liter- 
ally) as  in  stead  of  the  likenes  of  a  Dove,  to  bring  him  downe  in 
the  likenesse  of  a  Vulture,  or  Raven  ;  nor  such  a  scandall  to  their 
Church,  as  out  of  the  Barke  of  Saint  Peter,  to  set  forth  the  flagge 
of  a  Barge  of  Pirats  and  Assassins.  Therefore  since  these  things 
are  the  common  enemies  of  humane  society  :  Princes  by  their 
power ;  Churches  by  their  Decrees ;  and  all  learning,  Christian, 
morall,  of  what  soever  sect,  or  opinion,  by  their  Mercurie  rod  ; 
ought  to  joyne  in  the  damning  to  Hell  for  ever  these  facts  and 
their  supports  :  and  in  all  Counsels  concerning  religion,  that  Coun- 
sell  of  the  Apostle  would  be  prefixed,  Ira  hominis  non  implet 
justitiam  Dei* 

2.    Of  Unity  in  Religion. 

Religion  being  the  chiefe  Band  of  humane  Society,  it  is  a  happy 
thing  when  it  selfe  is  well  contained  within  the  true  Band  of  Unity. 
The  Quarrels  and  Divisions  about  Religion  were  Evils  unknowne 
to  the  Heathen.  The  Reason  was  because  the  Religion  of  the 
Heathen  consisted  rather  in  Rites  and  Ceremonies  then  in  any 
constant  Beleefe.  For  you  may  imagine  what  kinde  of  Faith 
theirs  was,  when  the  chiefe  Doctors  and  Fathers  of  their  Church 
were  the  Poets.  But  the  true  God  hath  this  Attribute,  That  he  is 
a  Jealous  God ;  And  therefore,  his  worship  and  Religion  .will 
endure  no  Mixture,  nor  Partner. 

We  shall  therefore  speake  a  few  words  concerning  the  Unity 
of  the  Church;  What  are  the  Fruits  thereof;  what  the  Bounds; 
And  what  the  Meanes  ? 

*  Jas.  i.  20 :  '  The  wrath  of  man  worketh  not  the  righteousness  of  God! 


68  FRANCIS  BACON. 

The  Fruits  of  Unity  (next  unto  the  well  Pleasing  of  God,  which 
is  All  in  All)  are  two ;  the  One,  towards  those  that  are  without  the 
Church;  the  Other,  towards  those  that  are  within.  For  the 
Former ;  It  is  certaine  that  Heresies  and  Schismes  are  of  all 
others,5  the  greatest  Scandals  ;  yea  more  then  Corruption  of  Man- 
ners. For  as  in  the  Naturall  Body,  a  wound  or  Solution  of  Con- 
tinuity is  worse  than  a  Corrupt  Humor ;  So  in  the  Spiritual!.  So 
that  nothing  doth  so  much  keepe  Men  out  of  the  Church,  and 
drive  Men  out  of  the  Church,  as  Breach  of  Unity  ;  And  therefore, 
whensoever  it  commeth  to  that  passe  that  one  saith,  Ecce  in  De- 
serto  ;  6  Another  saith,  Ecce  in  penetralibus  ;  c  That  is,  when  some 
Men  seeke  Christ  in  the  Conventicles  of  Heretikes,  and  others  in 
an  Outward  Face  of  a  Church,  that  voice  had  need  continually  to 
sound  in  Mens  Eares,  Nolite  exire,  Goe  not  out.  The  Doctor  of 
the  Gentiles  (the  Propriety  of  whose  Vocation  drew  him  to  have 
a  speciall  care  of  those  without}  saith ;  If  an  Heathen  come  in, 
and  lieare  you  speake  with  severall  Tongues,  Will  he  not  say  that 
you  are  mad?1  And  certainly  it  is  little  better  when  Atheists  and 
prophane  Persons  do  heare  of  so  many  Discordant  and  Contrary 
Opinions  in  Religion  ;  It  doth  avert  them  from  the  Church,  and 
maketh  them,  To  sit  downe  in  the  chaire  of  the  Scorners*  It  is 
but  a  light  Thing  to  be  Vouched  in  so  Serious  a  Matter,  but  yet 
it  expresseth  well  the  Deformity.  There  is  a  Master  of  Scoffing ; 
that  in  his  Catalogue  of  Books,  of  a  faigned  Library,  sets  Downe 
this  Title  of  a  Booke ;  The  morris  daunce  of  Heretikes?  For 
indeed,  every  Sect  of  them  hath  a  Divers  Posture,  or  Cringe  by 
themselves,  which  cannot  but  Move  Derision  in  Worldlings,  and 
Depraved  Politickes,  who  are  apt  to  contemne  Holy  Things. 

5  Common  expression  in  Elizabethan  English. 

6  Matt.  xxiv.  26  (Vulgate)  :  '  Behold  he  is  in  the  desert ' ;  '  Behold  he  is  in 
the  secret  chambers? 

7  I  Cor.  xiv.  23. 

8  Ps.  i.  I. 

9  La  Morisque  des  hereticques.    RABELAIS,  Pantagruel,  II.  7.  — ARBER.    See 
Douce's  Illustrations  of  Shakespeare,  Dissertation  III.  pp.  576  ff.,  for  full  de- 


THE  ESS  A  YES   OF   VISCOUNT  ST.   A  LEAN.  69 

As  for  the  Fruit  towards  those  that  are  within;  It  is  Peace ; 
which  containeth  infinite  Blessings :  It  established!  Faith ;  It 
kindleth  Charity ;  The  outward  Peace  of  the  Church  Distilleth 
into  Peace  of  Conscience  ;  And  it  turneth  the  Labours  of  Writing 
and  Reading  of  Controversies  into  Treaties  of  Mortification  and 
Devotion. 

Concerning  the  Bounds  of  Unity ;  The  true  Placing  of  them 
importeth  exceedingly.10  There  appeare  to  be  two  extremes. 
For  to  certaine  Zelants  "  all  Speech  of  Pacification  is  odious.  Is 
it  peace,  Jehu  ?  What  hast  thou  to  doe  with  peace  ?  turne  thee 
behinde  me}-  Peace  is  not  the  Matter,  but  Following  and  Party. 
Contrariwise,  certaine  Laodiceans,  and  Luke-warme  Persons,  thinke 
they  may  accommodate  Points  of  Religion  by  Middle-Waies  and 
taking  part  of  both  ;  And  witty  Reconcilements  ;  As  if  they  would 
make  an  Arbitrement  betweene  God  and  Man.  Both  these  Ex- 
tremes are  to  be  avoyded ;  which  will  be  done,  if  the  League  of 
Christians,  penned  by  our  Saviour  himselfe,  were  in  the  two  crosse 
Clauses  thereof  soundly  and  plainly  expounded ;  He  that  is  not 
with  us,  is  against  us : 1:!  And  againe  ;  He  that  is  not  against  us, 
is  with  us :  u  That  is,  if  the  Points  Fundamentall  and  of  Substance 
in  Religion  were  truly  discerned  and  distinguished  from  Points  not 
meerely  of  Faith,  but  of  Opinion,  Order,  or  good  Intention.  This 
is  a  Thing  may  seeme  to  Many  a  Matter  trivial!,  and  done  already  : 
But  if  it  were  done  lesse  partially,  it  would  be  embraced  more 
generally. 

Of  this  I  may  give  onely  this  Advice,  according  to  my  small 
Modell.  Men  ought  to  take  heede  of  rending  God's  Church  by 
two  kinds  of  Controversies.  The  one  is,  when  the  Matter  of  the 
Point  controverted  is  too  small  and  light,  not  worth  the  Heat  and 
Strife  about  it  kindled  onely  by  Contradiction.  For,  as  it  is  noted 
by  one  of  the  Fathers  ;  Christs  Coat,  indeed,  had  no  seame  :  But 

scription  of  the  Morris-dance.     See  also  Hone's  Ancient  Mysteries  Described, 
p.  268,  for  plate  of  a  Fool's  Morris  Dance,  etched  by  Cruikshank. 

10  is  of  great  importance.  n  zealots.  12  2  Kings  ix.  18. 

18  Matt.  xii.  30.  M  Mark  ix.  40. 


70  FRANCIS  BACON. 

the  Churches  Vesture  was  of  divers  colours  ;™  whereupon  he  saith, 
In  veste  varietas  sit,  Scissura  non  sit;™  They  be  two  Things, 
Unity  and  Uniformity.  The  other  is,  when  the  Matter  of  the 
Point  Controverted  is  great;  but  it  is  driven  to  an  over-great 
Subtility  and  Obscurity ;  So  that  it  becommeth  a  Thing  rather 
Ingenious  than  Substantial!.  A  man  that  is  of  Judgement  and 
understanding  shall  sometimes  heare  Ignorant  Men  differ,  and 
know  well  within  himselfe  that  those  which  so  differ  meane  one 
thing,  and  yet  they  themselves  would  never  agree.  And  if  it  come 
so  to  passe  in  that  distance  of  Judgement,  which  is  betweene  Man 
and  Man ;  Shall  wee  not  thinke  that  God  above,  that  knowes  the 
Heart,  doth  not  discerne  that  fraile  Men,  in  some  of  their  Contra- 
dictions, intend  the  same  thing,  and  accepteth  of  both?  The 
Nature  of  such  Controversies  is  excellently  expressed  by  St.  Paul 
in  the  Warning  and  Precept  that  he  giveth  concerning  the  same, 
Devita  profanas  vocum  Novitates,  et  Oppositiones  falsi  Nominis 
Sciential  Men  create  Oppositions,  which  are  not ;  And  put  them 
into  new  termes,  so  fixed  as  whereas  the  Meaning  ought  to  govern 
the  Terme,  the  Terme  in  effect  governeth  the  Meaning.  There 
be  also  two  false  Peaces,  or  Unities ;  The  one,  when  the  Peace  is 
grounded  but  upon  an  implicite  ignorance ;  For  all  Colours  will 
agree  in  the  Darke  :  The  other,  when  it  is  peeced  up  upon  a 
direct  Admission  of  Contraries  in  Fundamentall  Points.  For 
Truth  and  Falshood,  in  such  things,  are  like  the  Iron  and  Clay, 
in  the  toes  of  Nabucadnezars  Image  ;18  They  may  Cleave,  but  they 
will  not  Incorporate. 

Concerning  the  Meanes  of  procuring  Unity  ;  Men  must  beware 
that  in  the  Procuring,  or  M  uniting,  of  Religious  Unity,  they  doe  not 

15  The  allusion  is  to  Ps.  xlv.  14,  where,  instead  of  '  in  raiment  of  needle- 
work,' the  Vulgate  has  circumamicta  varielatibus,  '  enveloped  with  varieties.' 
—  ARBER. 

16  In  raiment  let  there  be  variety,  but  not  rents.    ST.  BERNARD,  Ad  Guille- 
lum  Abbatem  Apologia,  pp.  983,  4,  ed.  1640.  — ARBER. 

17  I  Tim.  vi.  20:    '  Avoid  profane  and  vain  babblings  and  oppositions  of 
science  falsely  so-called!  18  Dan.  ii.  33. 


THE  ESS  A  YES   OF  VISCOUNT  ST.   ALB  AN.  71 

Dissolve  and  Deface  the  Lavves  of  Charity  and  of  humane  Society. 
There  be  two  Swords  amongst  Christians ;  the  Spirituall,  and 
Temporall ;  And  both  have  their  due  Office  and  place-  in  the 
maintenance  of  Religion.  But  we  may  not  take  up  the  Third  sword, 
which  is  Mahomets  Sword,  or  like  unto  it ;  That  is,  to  propagate 
Religion  by  Warrs,  or  by  Sanguinary  Persecutions,  to  force  Con- 
sciences ;  except  it  be  in  the  cases  of  Overt  Scandall,  Blasphemy, 
or  Intermixture  of  practize,  against  the  State ;  Much  lesse  to 
Nourish  Seditions ;  to  Authorize  Conspiracies  and  Rebellions ;  To 
put  the  Sword  into  the  Peoples  Hands ;  And  the  like ;  Tending 
to  the  Subversion  of  all  Government,  which  is  the  Ordinance  of 
God.  For  this  is  but  to  dash  the  first  Table  against  the  Second  ; 19 
And  so  to  consider  Men  as  Christians,  as  we  forget  that  they  are 
Men.  Lucretius  the  Poet,  when  he  beheld  the  Act  of  Agamemnon, 
that  could  endure  the  Sacrificing  of  his  owne  Daughter,  exclaimed ; 

Tantum  relligio  potuit  snadere  malorum}- 

What  would  he  have  said,  if  he  had  knowne  of  the  Massacre  in 
France,2  or  the  Powder  Treason  of  England?3  He  would  have 
beene  Seven  times  more  Epicure  and  Atheist  then  he  was.  For 
as  the  Temporall  Sword  is  to  bee  drawne  with  great  circumspec- 
tion in  cases  of  Religion  ;  So  it  is  a  thing  Monstrous,  to  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  Common  People.  Let  that  bee  left  unto  the 
Anabaptists  and  other  Furies.  It  was  great  Blasphemy,  when  the 
Devill  said;  /  will  ascend,  and  bee  like  the  Highest;™  But  it  is 
greater  Blasphemy  to  personate  God,  and  bring  him  in  saying ; 
/  will  descend,  and  be  like  the  Prince  of  Darknesse  ;  And  what  is 
it  better  to  make  the  cause  of  Religion  to  descend  to  the  cruell 
and  execrable  Actions  of  Murthering  Princes,  Butchery  of  People, 
and  Subversion  of  States  and  Governments?  Surely,  this  is  to 
bringe  Downe  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  stead  of  the  Likenesse  of  a 
Dove,  in  the  Shape  of  a  Vulture,  or  Raven  :  And  to  set  out  of  the 
Barke  of  a  Christian  Church  a  Flagge  of  a  Barque  of  Pirats  and 

19  Ex.  xxxii.  19.  2°  Isa.  xiv.  14. 


72  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Assassins.  Therefore  it  is  most  necessary  that  the  Church  by 
Doctrine  and  Decree  ;  Princes  by  their  Sword  ;  And  all  Learnings, 
both  Christian  and  Morall,  as  by  their  Mercury  Rod  ;  Doe  Damne 
and  send  to  Hell,  for  ever,  those  Facts  and  Opinions,  tending  to 
the  Support  of  the  same ;  As  hath  beene  already  in  good  part 
done.  Surely  in  Counsels  Concerning  Religion,  that  Counsel  of 
the  Apostle  would  be  prefixed  ;  Ira  hominis  non  implet  justiciam 
Dei?  And  it  was  a  notable  Observation  of  a  wise  Father,  And  no 
lesse  ingenuously  confessed,  That  those  which  held  and  persumded 
pressure  of  Consciences,  -were  commonly  interessed  therein  them- 
selves for  their  owne  ends. 


IV. 

2.    THE  HISTORY  OF  KfNG  HENRY  VH. 

[Written  about  1621.] 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  REIGN  OF  KING  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH. 

AFTER  that  Richard,  the  third  of  that  name,  King  in  fact  only, 
but  tyrant  both  in  title  and  regiment,1  and  so  commonly  termed 
and  reputed  in  all  times  since,  was,  by  the  divine  revenge  favour- 
ing the  design  of  an  exiled  man,  overthrown  and  slain  at  Bosworth- 
field ;  there  succeeded  in  the  kingdom  the  earl  of  Richmond, 
thenceforth  styled  Henry  the  seventh.  The  King,  immediately 
after  the  victory,  as  one  that  had  been  bred  under  a  devout  mother, 
and  was  in  his  nature  a  great  observer  of  religious  forms,  caused 
Te  Deum  laudamus  to  be  solemnly  sung  in  the  presence  of  the 
whole  army  upon  the  place,  and  was  himself  with  general  applause 
and  great  cries  of  joy,  in  a  kind  of  military  election  or  recognition, 
saluted  King.  Meanwhile  the  body  of  Richard,  after  many  indig- 
nities and  reproaches,  the  diriges  -  and  obsequies  of  the  common 
people  towards  tyrants,  was  obscurely  buried.  For  though  the 
King  of  his  nobleness  gave  charge  unto  the  friars  of  Leicester  to 
see  an  honourable  interment  to  be  given  to  it,  yet  the  religious 
people  themselves,  being  not  free  from  the  humours  of  the  vulgar, 
neglected  it ;  wherein  nevertheless  they  did  not  then  incur  any 
man's  blame  or  censure  :  no  man  thinking  any  ignominy  or  con- 
tumely unworthy  of  him  that  had  been  the  executioner  of  King 
Henry  the  sixth,  that  innocent  *  Prince,  with  his  own  hands ;  the 
contriver  of  the  death  of  the  duke  of  Clarence  his  brother ;  the 
murderer  of  his  two  nephews,  one  of  them  his  lawful  King  in  the 
present,  and  the  other  in  the  future,  failing  of  him,  and  vehemently 

1  government.  2  funeral  hymns,  hence  dirg>s.  *  weak. 

73 


74  FRANCIS  BACON. 

suspected  to  have  been  the  impoisoner  of  his  wife,  thereby  to 
make  vacant  his  bed  for  a  marriage  within  the  degrees  forbidden. 
And  although  he  were  a  Prince  in  military  virtue  approved,  jealous 
of  the  honour  of  the  English  nation,  and  likewise  a  good  law- 
maker, for  the  ease  and  solace  of  the  common  people ;  yet  his 
cruelties  and  parricides,  in  the  opinion  of  all  men,  weighed  down 
his  virtues  and  merits ;  and,  in  the  opinion  of  wise  men,  even 
those  virtues  themselves  were  conceived  to  be  rather  feigned  and 
affected  things  to  serve  his  ambition,  than  true  qualities  ingenerate 
in  his  judgment  or  nature.  And  therefore  it  was  noted  by  men 
of  great  understanding,  who  seeing  his  after-acts,  looked  back 
upon  his  former  proceedings,  that  even  in  the  time  of  King  Ed- 
ward his  brother  he  was  not  without  secret  trains  and  mines  to 
turn  envy  and  hatred  upon  his  brother's  government ;  as  having 
an  expectation  and  a  kind  of  divination,  that  the  King,  by  reason 
of  his  many  disorders,  could  not  be  of  long  life,  but  was  like  to 
leave  his  sons  of  tender  years ;  and  then  he  knew  well  how  easy 
a  step  it  was  from  the  place  of  a  protector  and  first  Prince  of  the 
blood  to  the  crown.  And  that  out  of  this  deep  root  of  ambition 
it  sprung,  that  as  well  at  the  treaty  of  peace  that  passed  between 
Edward  the  fourth  and  Lewis  the  eleventh  of  France,  concluded 
by  interview  of  both  Kings  at  Piqueny,3  as  upon  all  other  occa- 
sions, Richard,  then  duke  of  Gloucester,  stood  ever  upon  the  side 
of  honour,  raising  his  own  reputation  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
King  his  brother,  and  drawing  the  eyes  of  all,  especially  of  the 
nobles  and  soldiers,  upon  himself;  as  if  the  King,  by  his  volup- 
tuous life  and  mean  marriage,  were  become  effeminate  and  less 
sensible  of  honour  and  reason  of  state  than  was  fit  for  a  King. 
And  as  for  the  politic  and  wholesome  laws  which  were  enacted  in 
his  time,  they  were  interpreted  to  be  but  the  brocage4  of  an  usurper, 
thereby  to  woo  and  win  the  hearts  of  the  people,  as  being  conscious 
to  himself  that  the  true  obligations  of  sovereignty  in  him  failed, 
and  were  wanting.  But  King  Henry,  in  the  very  entrance  of  his 

8  in  1475.  *  mean  practices. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  75 

reign,  and  the  instant  of  time  when  the  kingdom  was  cast  into  his 
arms,  met  with  a  point  of  great  difficulty,  and  knotty  to  solve,  able 
to  trouble  and  confound  the  wisest  King  in  the  newness  of  his 
estate ;  and  so  much  the  more,  because  it  could  not  endure  a 
deliberation,  but  must  be  at  once  deliberated  and  determined. 
There  were  fallen  to  his  lot,  and  concurrent  in  his  person,  three 
several  titles  to  the  imperial  crown.  The  first,  the  title  of  the 
lady  Elizabeth,  with  whom,  by  precedent  pact5  with  the  party  that 
brought  him  in,  he  was  to  marry.  The  second,  the  ancient  and 
long  disputed  title,  both  by  plea  and  arms,  of  the  house  of  Lan- 
caster, to  which  he  was  inheritor  in  his  own  person.  The  third, 
the  title  of  the  sword  or  conquest,  for  that  he  came  in  by  victory 
of  battle,  and  that  the  king  in  possession  was  slain  in  the  field. 
The  first  of  these  was  fairest,  and  most  likely  to  give  contentment 
to  the  people,  who  by  two  and  twenty  years  reign  of  King  Edward 
the  fourth  had  been  fully  made  capable  of  the  clearness  of  the 
title  of  the  white  rose  or  house  of  York ;  and,  by  the  rnild  and 
plausible  reign  of  the  same  King  toward  his  latter  time,  were 
become  affectionate  to  that  line.  But  then  it  lay  plain  before  his 
eyes,  that  if  he  relied  upon  that  title,  he  could  be  but  a  King  at 
courtesy,  and  have  rather  a  matrimonial  than  a  regal  power ;  the 
right  remaining  in  his  Queen,  upon  whose  decease,  either  with 
issue  or  without  issue,  he  was  to  give  place  and  be  removed.  And 
though  he  should  obtain  by  parliament  to  be  continued,  yet  he 
knew  there  was  a  very  great  difference  between  a  King  that  hold- 
eth  his  crown  by  a  civil  act  of  estates,  and  one  that  holdeth  it 
originally  by  the  law  of  nature  and  descent  of  blood.  Neither 
wanted  there  even  at  that  time  secret  rumours  and  whisperings, 
which  afterwards  gathered  strength  and  turned  to  great  troubles, 
that  the  two  young  sons  of  King  Edward  the  fourth,  or  one  of  them, 
which  were  said  to  be  destroyed  in  the  Tower,  were  not  indeed 
murdered,  but  conveyed  secretly  away,  and  were  yet  living :  which, 
if  it  had  been  true,  had  prevented  the  title  of  the  lady  Elizabeth. 

8  agreement. 


76  FRANCIS  BACON. 

On  the  other  side,  if  he  stood  upon  his  own  title  of  the  house  of 
Lancaster,  inherent  in  his  person,  he  knew  it  was  a  title  con- 
demned by  parliament,  and  generally  prejudged 6  in  the  common 
opinion  of  the  realm,  and  that  it  tended  directly  to  the  disin- 
herison 7  of  the  line  of  York,  held  then  the  indubitate 8  heirs  of  the 
crown.  So  that  if  he  should  have  no  issue  by  the  lady  Elizabeth, 
which  should  be  descendants  of  the  double  line,  then  the  ancient 
flames  of  discord  and  intestine  wars,  upon  the  competition  of 
both  houses,  would  again  return  and  revive. 

As  for  conquest,  notwithstanding  Sir  William  Stanley,  after  some 
acclamations  of  the  soldiers  in  the  field,  had  put  a  crown  of  orna- 
ment, which  Richard  wore  in  the  battle  and  was  found  amongst 
the  spoils,  upon  King  Henry's  head,  as  if  there  were  his  chief 
title  ;  yet  he  remembered  well  upon  what  conditions  and  agree- 
ments he  was  brought  in ;  and  that  to  claim  as  conqueror,  was  to 
put  as  well  his  own  party,  as  the  rest,  into  terror  and  fear ;  as  that 
which  gave  him  power  of  disannulling  of  laws,  and  disposing  of 
men's  fortunes  and  estates,  and  the  like  points  of  absolute  power, 
being  in  themselves  so  harsh  and  odious,  as  that  William  himself, 
commonly  called  the  conqueror,  howsoever  he  used  and  exercised 
the  power  of  a  conqueror  to  reward  his  Normans,  yet  he  forebore 
to  use  that  claim  in  the  beginning,  but  mixed  it  with  a  titulary 
pretence,  grounded  upon  the  will  and  designation  of  Edward  the 
confessor.  But  the  King,  out  of  the  greatness  of  his  own  mind, 
presently  cast  the  die ;  and  the  inconveniences  appearing  unto 
him  on  all  parts,  and  knowing  there  could  not  be  any  interreign 
or  suspension  of  title,  and  preferring  his  affection  to  his  own  line 
and  blood,  and  liking  that  title  best  which  made  him  independent ; 
and  being  in  his  nature  and  constitution  of  mind  not  very  appre- 
hensive or  forecasting  of  future  events  afar  off,  but  an  entertainer 
of  fortune  by  the  day ;  resolved  to  rest  upon  the  title  of  Lancaster 
as  the  main,  and  to  use  the  other  two,  that  of  marriage,  and  that 
of  battle,  but  as  supporters,  the  one  to  appease  secret  discontents, 

6  prejudiced.  ~  disinheriting.  *  undoubted. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  77 

and  the  other  to  beat  down  open  murmur  and  dispute ;  not  for- 
getting that  the  same  title  of  Lancaster  had  formerly  maintained 
a  possession  of  three  descents  in  the  crown ;  and  might  have 
proved  a  perpetuity,  had  it  not  ended  in  the  weakness  and  inabil- 
ity of  the  last  prince.  Whereupon  the  King  presently  that  very 
day,  being  the  two  and  twentieth  of  August,  assumed  the  style  of 
King  in  his  own  name,  without  mention  of  the  lady  Elizabeth  at 
all,  or  any  relation9  thereunto.  In  which  course  he  ever  after 
persisted ;  which  did  spin  him  a  thread  of  many  seditions  and 
troubles.  The  King,  full  of  these  thoughts,  before  his  departure 
from  Leicester,  dispatched  Sir  Robert  Willoughby  to  the  castle 
of  Sheriff- Hutton  in  Yorkshire,  where  were  kept  in  safe  custody, 
by  King  Richard's  commandment,  both  the  lady  Elizabeth,  daugh- 
ter of  King  Edward,  and  Edward  Plantagenet,  son  and  heir  to 
George  duke  of  Clarence.  This  Edward  was  by  the  King's  war- 
rant delivered  from  the  constable  of  the  castle  to  the  hand  of  Sir 
Robert  Willoughby ;  and  by  him  with  all  safety  and  diligence 
conveyed  to  the  Tower  of  London,  where  he  was  shut  up  close 
prisoner.  Which  act  of  the  king's,  being  an  act  merely  of  policy 
and  power,  proceeded  not  so  much  from  any  apprehension  he 
had  of  doctor  Shaw's  tale  at  Paul's  cross,10  for  the  bastarding  of 
Edward  the  fourth's  issues,  in  which  case  this  young  gentleman 
was  to  succeed,  for  that  fable  was  ever  exploded,  but  upon  a 
settled  disposition  to  depress  all  eminent  persons  of  the  line  of 
York.  Wherein  still  the  King,  out  of  strength  of  will  or  weakness 
of  judgment,  did  use  to  shew  a  little  more  of  the  party  than  of  the 
King. 

For  the  lady  Elizabeth,  she  received  also  a  direction  to  repair 
with  all  convenient  speed  to  London,  and  there  to  remain  with 
the  Queen  dowager  her  mother ;  which  accordingly  she  soon  after 
did,  accompanied  with  many  noblemen  and  ladies  of  honour.  In 
the  mean  season  the  King  set  forwards  by  easy  journeys  to  the 
city  of  London,  receiving  the  acclamations  and  applauses  of  the 

9  reference.  10  See  note  in  Luinby's  edition  (Pitt  Press  Series). 


78  FRANCIS  BACON. 

people  as  he  went,  which  indeed  were  true  and  unfeigned,  as 
might  well  appear  in  the  very  demonstrations  and  fulness  of  the 
cry.  For  they  thought  generally,  that  he  was  a  Prince,  as  ordained 
and  sent  down  from  heaven,  to  unite  and  put  to  an  end  the  long 
dissensions  of  the  two  houses ;  which  u  although  they  had  had,  in 
the  times  of  Henry  the  fourth,  Henry  the  fifth,  and  a  part  of 
Henry  the  sixth,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  times  of  Edward  the 
fourth  on  the  other,  lucid  intervals  and  happy  pauses ;  yet  they 
did  ever  hang  over  the  kingdom,  ready  to  break  forth  into  new 
perturbations  and  calamities.  And  as  his  victory  gave  him  the 
knee,  so  his  purpose  of  marriage  with  the  lady  Elizabeth  gave  him 
the  heart ;  so  that  both  knee  and  heart  did  truly  bow  before  him. 

He  on  the  other  side  with  great  wisdom,  not  ignorant  of  the 
affections  and  fears  of  the  people,  to  disperse  the  conceit  and 
terror  of  a  conquest,  had  given  order,  that  there  should  be  nothing 
in  his  journey  like  unto  a  warlike  march  or  manner ;  but  rather 
like  unto  the  progress  of  a  King  in  full  peace  and  assurance. 

He  entered  the  city  upon  a  Saturday ;  as  he  had  also  obtained 
the  victory  upon  a  Saturday ;  which  day  of  the  week,  first  upon 
an  observation,  and  after  upon  memory  and  fancy,  he  accounted 
and  chose  as  a  day  prosperous  unto  him. 

The  mayor  and  companies  of  the  city  received  him  at  Shore- 
ditch  ;  whence  with  great  and  honourable  attendance,  and  troops 
of  noblemen,  and  persons  of  quality,  he  entered  the  city ;  himself 
not  being  on  horseback,  or  in  any  open  chair  or  throne,  but  in  a 
close  chariot,  as  one  that  having  been  sometimes  an  enemy  to  the 
whole  state,  and  a  proscribed  person,  chose  rather  to  keep  state, 
and  strike  a  reverence  into  the  people,  than  to  fawn  upon  them. 

He  went  first  into  St.  Paul's  church,  where,  not  meaning  that 
the  people  should  forget  too  soon  that  he  came  in  by  battle,  he 
made  offertory  of  his  standards,  and  had  orisons  and  Te  Deum 
again  sung ;  and  went  to  his  lodging  prepared  in  the  bishop  of 
London's  palace,  where  he  stayed  for  a  time. 

11  No  predicate,  as  they  is  inserted  afterwards. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  79 

During  his  abode  there,  he  assembled  his  council  and  other 
principal  persons,  in  presence  of  whom  he  did  renew  again  his 
promise  to  marry  with  the  lady  Elizabeth.  This  he  did  the  rather, 
because  having  at  his  coming  out  of  Britain  ^  given  artificially,  for 
serving  his  own  turn,  some  hopes,  in  case  he  obtained  the  king- 
dom, to  marry  Anne,  inheritress  to  the  duchy  of  Britain,  whom 
Charles  the  eighth  of  France  soon  after  married,  it  bred  some 
doubt  and  suspicion  amongst  divers  that  he  was  not  sincere,  or 
at  least  not  fixed  in  going  on  with  the  match  of  England  so  much 
desired  :  which  conceit  also,  though  it  were  but  talk  and  discourse, 
did  much  afflict  the  poor  lady  Elizabeth  herself.  But  howsoever 
he  both  truly  intended  it,  and  desired  also  it  should  be  so  believed, 
the  better  to  extinguish  envy  and  contradiction  to  his  other  pur- 
poses, yet  was  he  resolved  in  himself  not  to  proceed  to  the  con- 
summation thereof,  till  his  coronation  and  a  parliament  were 
past.  The  one,  lest  a  joint  coronation  of  himself  and  his  Queen 
might  give  any  countenance  of  participation  of  title ;  the  other, 
lest  in  the  entailing  of  the  crown  to  himself,  which  he  hoped  to 
obtain  by  parliament,  the  votes  of  the  parliament  might  any  ways 
reflect  upon  her. 

About  this  time  in  autumn,  towards  the  end  of  September,  there 
began  and  reigned  in  the  city,  and  other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  a 
disease  then  new :  which  by  the  accidents  and  manner  thereof 
they  called  the  sweating  sickness.  This  disease  had  a  swift  course, 
both  in  the  sick  body,  and  in  the  time  and  period  of  the  lasting 
thereof;  for  they  that  were  taken  with  it,  upon  four  and  twenty 
hours  escaping,  were  thought  almost  assured.  And  as  to  the  time 
of  the  malice  and  reign  of  the  disease,  ere  it  ceased ;  it  began 
about  the  one  and  twentieth  of  September,  and  cleared  up  before 
the  end  of  October,  insomuch  as  it  was  no  hindrance  to  the  King's 
coronation,  which  was  the  last  of  October ;  nor,  which  was  more, 
to  the  holding  of  the  parliament,  which  began  but  seven  days 
after.  It  was  a  pestilent  fever,  but,  as  it  seemeth,  not  seated  in 

13  Brittany. 


80  FRANCIS  BACON. 

the  veins  or  humours,  for  there  followed  no  carbuncle,  no  purple 
or  livid  spots,  or  the  like,  the  mass  of  the  body  being  not  tainted ; 
only  a  malign  vapour  flew  to  the  heart,  and  seized  the  vital  spirits ; 
which  stirred  nature  to  strive  to  send  it  forth  by  an  extreme  sweat. 
And  it  appeared  by  experience  that  this  disease  was  rather  a 
surprise  of  nature  than  obstinate  to  remedies,  if  it  were  in  time 
looked  unto.  For  if  the  patient  were  kept  in  an  equal  temper, 
both  for  clothes,  fire,  and  drink,  moderately  warm,  with  temperate 
cordials,  whereby  nature's  work  were  neither  irritated  by  heat,  nor 
turned  back  by  cold,  he  commonly  recovered.  But  infinite  per- 
sons died  suddenly  of  it,  before  the  manner  of  the  cure  and  attend- 
ance was  known.  It  was  conceived  not  to  be  an  epidemic  disease, 
but  to  proceed  from  a  malignity  in  the  constitution  of  the  air, 
gathered  by  the  predispositions  of  seasons ;  and  the  speedy  cessa- 
tion declared  as  much. 

On  Simon  and  Jude's  eve,13  the  King  dined  with  Thomas  Bour- 
chier,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  cardinal ;  and  from  Lambeth 
went  by  land  over  the  bridge  to  the  Tower,  where  the  morrow 
after  he  made  twelve  knights  bannerets.  But  for  creations  he 
dispensed  them  with  a  sparing  hand.  For  notwithstanding  a  field 
so  lately  fought,  and  a  coronation  so  near  at  hand,  he  only  created 
three  :  Jasper,  earl  of  Pembroke,  the  King's  uncle,  was  created 
duke  of  Bedford ;  Thomas,  the  lord  Stanley,  the  King's  father-in- 
law,*  earl  of  Derby ;  and  Edward  Courtney,  earl  of  Devon ;  though 
the  King  had  then  nevertheless  a  purpose  in  himself  to  make 
more  in  time  of  Parliament ;  bearing  a  wise  and  decent  respect 
to  distribute  his  creations,  some  to  honour  his  coronation,  and 
some  his  parliament. 

The  coronation  followed  two  days  after,  upon  the  thirtieth  day 
of  October,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1485  ;  at  which  time  Inno- 
cent the  eighth  was  Pope  of  Rome  ;  Frederick  the  third  Emperor 
of  Almain ; H  and  Maximilian  his  son  newly  chosen  King  of  the 
Romans ;  Charles  the  eighth  King  of  France ;  Ferdinando  and 

18  October  27.  *  step-father.  M  Germany. 


THE  HISTORY   OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  81 

Isabella  Kings  of  Spain ;  and  James  the  third,  King  of  Scotland  : 
with  all  which  Kings  and  States  the  King  was  at  that  time  in  good 
peace  and  amity.  At  which  day  also,  as  if  the  crown  upon  his 
head  had  put  perils  into  his  thoughts,  he  did  institute,  for  the 
better  security  of  his  person,  a  band  of  fifty  archers,  under  a  cap- 
tain, to  attend  him,  by  the  name  of  yeomen  of  his  guard  :  and 
yet,  that  it  might  be  thought  to  be  rather  a  matter  of  dignity,  after 
the  imitation  of  what  he  had  known  abroad,  than  any  matter  of 
diffidence  appropriate  to  his  own  case,  he  made  it  to  be  under- 
stood for  an  ordinance  not  temporary,  but  to  hold  in  succession 
for  ever  after. 


THIS  King,  to  speak  of  him  in  terms  equal  to  his  deserving,  was 
one  of  the  best  sort  of  wonders  ;  a  wonder  for  wise  men.  He  had 
parts,  both  in  his  virtues  and  his  fortune,  not  so  fit  for  a  common 
place,  as  for  observation.  Certainly  he  was  religious,  both  in  his 
affection  and  observance.  But  as  he  could  see  clear,  for  those 
times,  through  superstition,  so  he  would  be  blinded,  now  and  then, 
by  human  policy.  He  advanced  churchmen;  he  was  tender  in 
the  privilege  of  sanctuaries,  though  they  wrought  him  much  mis- 
chief. He  built  and  endowed  many  religious  foundations,  besides 
his  memorable  hospital  of  the  Savoy  :  and  yet  was  he  a  great  alms- 
giver  in  secret ;  which  shewed  that  his  works  in  public  were  dedi- 
cated rather  to  God's  glory  than  his  own.  He  professed  always  to 
love  and  seek  peace  :  and  it  was  his  usual  preface  in  his  treaties, 
that  when  Christ  came  into  the  world,  peace  was  sung ;  and  when 
he  went  out  of  the  world,  peace  was  bequeathed.  And  this  virtue 
could  not  proceed  out  of  fear  or  softness ;  for  he  was  valiant 
and  active,  and  therefore,  no  doubt,  it  was  truly  Christian  and 
moral.  Yet  he  knew  the  way  to  peace  was  not  to  seem  to  be 
desirous  to  avoid  wars  :  therefore  would  he  make  offers  and  fames 15 
of  wars,  till  he  had  mended  the  conditions  of  peace.  It  was  also 

16  reports. 


82  FRANCIS  BACON. 

much,  that  one  that  was  so  great  a  lover  of  peace,  should  be  so 
happy  in  war.  For  his  arms,  either  in  foreign  or  civil  wars,  were 
never  unfortunate ;  neither  did  he  know  what  a  disaster  meant. 
The  war  of  his  coming  in,  and  the  rebellions  of  the  earl  of  Lincoln, 
and  the  lord  Audley,  were  ended  by  victory.  The  wars  of  France 
and  Scotland,  by  peaces  sought  at  his  hands.  That  of  Britain,  by 
accident  of  the  duke's  death.  The  insurrection  of  the  lord  Lovel, 
and  that  of  Perkin  at  Exeter,  and  in  Kent,  by  flight  of  the  rebels 
before  they  came  to  blows.  So  that  his  fortune  of  arms  was  still 
inviolate  :  the  rather  sure,  for  that  in  the  quenching  of  the  com- 
motions of  his  subjects,  he  ever  went  in  person  :  sometimes  reserv- 
ing himself  to  back  and  second  his  lieutenants,  but  ever  in  action ; 
and  yet  that  was  not  merely  forwardness,  but  partly  distrust  of 
others. 

He  did  much  maintain  and  countenance  his  laws ;  which,  never- 
theless, was  no  impediment  to  him  to  work  his  will :  for  it  was  so 
handled,  that  neither  prerogative  nor  profit  went  to  diminution. 
And  yet  as  he  would  sometimes  strain  up  his  laws  to  his  preroga- 
tive, so  would  he  also  let  down  his  prerogative  to  his  parliament. 
For  mint,16  and  wars,  and  martial  discipline,  things  of  absolute 
power,  he  would  nevertheless  bring  to  parliament.  Justice  was 
well  administered  in  his  time,  save  where  the  King  was  party : 
save  also,  that  the  council-table  intermeddled  too  much  with  meum 
and  tuum}1  For  it  was  a  very  court  of  justice  during  his  time, 
especially  in  the  beginning ;  but  in  that  part  both  of  justice  and 
policy,  which  is  the  durable  part,  and  cut,  as  it  were,  in  brass  or 
marble,  which  is  the  making  of  good  laws,  he  did  excel.  And 
with  his  justice,  he  was  also  a  merciful  prince  :  as  in  whose  time, 
there  were  but  three  of  the  nobility  that  suffered  ;  the  earl  of  War- 
wick, the  lord  chamberlain,  and  the  lord  Audley  :  though  the  first 
two  were  instead  of  numbers  in  the  dislike  and  obloquy  of  the 
people.  But  there  were  never  so  great  rebellions  expiated  with 
so  little  blood,  drawn  by  the  hand  of  justice,  as  the  two  rebellions 

16  coinage  of  money.  17  mine  and  thine. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  83 

of  Blackheath  and  Exeter.  As  for  the  severity  used  upon  those 
which  were  taken  in  Kent,  it  was  but  upon  a  scum  of  people.  His 
pardons  went  ever  both  before  and  after  his  sword.  But  then  he 
had  withal  a  strange  kind  of  interchanging  of  large  and  inexpected 
pardons,  with  severe  executions :  which,  his  wisdom  considered, 
could  not  be  imputed  to  any  inconstancy  or  inequality ;  but  either 
to  some  reason  which  we  do  not  now  know,  or  to  a  principle  he 
had  set  unto  himself,  that  he  would  vary,  and  try  both  ways  in 
turn.  But  the  less  blood  he  drew,  the  more  he  took  of  treasure. 
And,  as  some  construed  it,  he  was  the  more  sparing  in  the  one, 
that  he  might  be  the  more  pressing  in  the  other ;  for  both  would 
have  been  intolerable.  Of  nature  assuredly  he  coveted  to  accumu- 
late treasure,  and  was  a  little  poor  in  admiring  riches.  The  people, 
into  whom  there  is  infused,  for  the  preservation  of  monarchies,  a 
natural  desire  to  discharge  their  princes,18  though  it  be  with  the 
unjust  charge  of  their  counsellors  and  ministers,  did  impute  this 
unto  cardinal  Morton  and  Sir  Reginald  Bray  :  who,  as  it  after 
appeared,  as  counsellors  of  ancient  authority  with  him,  did  so 
second  his  humours,  as  nevertheless  they  did  temper  them. 
Whereas  Empson  and  Dudley  that  followed,  being  persons  that 
had  no  reputation  with  him,  otherwise  than  by  the  servile  follow- 
ing of  his  bent,  did  not  give  way  only,  as  the  first  did,  but  shape 
him  way  to  those  extremities,  for  which  himself  was  touched  with 
remorse  at  his  death,  and  which  his  successor  renounced  and  sought 
to  purge.  This  excess  of  his  had  at  that  time  many  glosses 19  and 
interpretations.  Some  thought  the  continual  rebellions  wherewith 
he  had  been  vexed,  had  made  him  grow  to  hate  his  people  :  some 
thought  it  was  done  to  pull  down  their  stomachs,  and  to  keep  them 
low  :  some,  for  that  he  would  leave  his  son  a  golden  fleece :  some 
suspected  he  had  some  high  design  upon  foreign  parts  :  but  those 
perhaps  shall  come  nearest  the  truth,  that  fetch  not  their  reasons 
so  far  off;  but  rather  impute  it  to  nature,  age,  peace,  and  a  mind 
fixed  upon  no  other  ambition  or  pursuit.  Whereunto  I  should 

18  relieve  them  from  blame.  19  explanations. 


84  FRANCIS  BACON. 

add,  that  having  every  day  occasion  to  take  notice  of  the  necessi- 
ties and  shifts  for  money  of  other  great  Princes  abroad,  it  did  the 
better,  by  comparison,  set  off  to  him  the  felicity  of  full  coffers.  As 
to  his  expending  of  treasure,  he  never  spared  charge  which  his 
affairs  required ;  and  in  his  buildings  was  magnificent,  but  his 
rewards  were  very  limited  :  so  that  his  liberality  was  rather  upon 
his  own  state  and  memory  than  upon  the  deserts  of  others. 

He  was  of  an  high  mind,  and  loved  his  own  will  and  his  own 
way  :  as  one  that  revered  himself  and  would  reign  indeed.  Had 
he  been  a  private  man,  he  would  have  been  termed  proud.  But 
in  a  wise  Prince,  it  was  but  keeping  of  distance,  which  indeed  he 
did  towards  all ;  not  admitting  any  near  or  full  approach,  either 
to  his  power,  or  to  his  secrets  :  for  he  was  governed  by  none.  His 
Queen,  notwithstanding  she  had  presented  him  with  divers  chil- 
dren, and  with  a  crown  also,  though  he  would  not  acknowledge  it, 
could  do  nothing  with  him.  His  mother  he  reverenced  much, 
heard  little.  For  any  person  agreeable  to  him  for  society,  such 
as  was  Hastings  to  King  Edward  the  fourth,  or  Charles  Brandon 
after  to  King  Henry  the  eighth,  he  had  none  :  except  we  should 
account  for  such  persons,  Fox,  and  Bray,  and  Empson,  because 
they  were  so  much  with  him  :  but  it  was  but  as  the  instrument 
is  much  with  the  workman.  He  had  nothing  in  him  of  vain- 
glory, but  yet  kept  state  and  majesty  to  the  height :  being  sen- 
sible that  majesty  maketh  the  people  bow,  but  vainglory  boweth 
to  them. 

To  his  confederates  abroad  he  was  constant  and  just,  but  not 
open.  But  rather  such  was  his  inquiry,  and  such  his  closeness,  as 
they  stood  in  the  light  towards  him,  and  he  stood  in  the  dark  to 
them.  Yet  without  strangeness,  but  with  a  semblance  of  mutual 
communication  of  affairs.  As  for  little  envies,  or  emulations  upon 
sovereign  princes,  which  are  frequent  with  many  Kings,  he  had 
never  any ;  but  went  substantially  to  his  own  business.  Certain  it 
is,  that  though  his  reputation  was  great  at  home,  yet  it  was  greater 
abroad.  For  foreigners  that  could  not  see  the  passages  of  affairs, 
but  made  their  judgments  upon  the  issues  of  them,  noted  that  he 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  85 

was  ever  in  strife,  and  ever  aloft.  It  grew  also  from  the  airs  which 
the  princes  and  states  abroad  received  from  their  ambassadors  and 
agents  here ;  which  were  attending  the  court  in  great  number : 
whom  he  did  not  only  content  with  courtesy,  reward,  and  private- 
ness  ;  but,  upon  such  conferences  as  passed  with  them,  put  them 
in  admiration,  to  find  his  universal  insight  into  the  affairs  of  the 
world  :  which  though  he  did  suck  chiefly  from  themselves,  yet 
that  which  he  had  gathered  from  them  all,  seemed  admirable  to 
every  one.  So  that  they  did  write  ever  to  their  superiors  in  high 
terms,  considering  his  wisdom  and  art  of  rule  :  nay,  when  they 
were  returned,  they  did  commonly  maintain  intelligence  with  him. 
Such  a  dexterity  he  had  to  impropriate  to  himself  all  foreign 
instruments. 

He  was  careful  and  liberal  to  obtain  good  intelligence  from  all 
parts  abroad  :  wherein  he  did  not  only  use  his  interest  in  the 
liegers  here,  and  his  pensioners,  which  he  had  both  in  the  court 
of  Rome,  and  other  the  courts  of  Christendom ;  but  the  industry 
and  vigilance  of  his  own  ambassadors  in  foreign  parts.  For  which 
purpose  his  instructions  were  ever  extreme,  curious  and  articu- 
late ; m  and  in  them  more  articles  touching  inquisition,  than 
touching  negotiation  :  requiring  likewise  from  his  ambassadors  an 
answer,  in  particular  distinct  articles,  respectively  to  his  questions. 

As  for  his  secret  spials,21  which  he  did  employ  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  by  them  to  discover  what  practices  and  conspiracies 
were  against  him,  surely  his  case  required  it ;  he  had  such  moles 
perpetually  working  and  casting  to  undermine  him.  Neither  can 
it  be  reprehended ;  for  if  spials  be  lawful  against  lawful  enemies, 
much  more  against  conspirators  and  traitors.  But  indeed  to  give 
them  credence22  by  oaths  or  curses,  that  cannot  be  well  main- 
tained ;  for  those  are  too  holy  vestments  for  a  disguise.  Yet 
surely  there  was  this  farther  good  in  his  employing  of  these  flies 
and  familiars ;  that  as  the  use  of  them  was  cause  that  many  con- 

20  particular.  21  spies. 

22  To  cause  them  to  be  believed  to  be  his  enemies. 


86  FRANCIS  BACON. 

spiracies  were  revealed,  so  the  fame  and  suspicion  of  them  kept, 
no  doubt,  many  conspiracies  from  being  attempted. 

Towards  his  Queen  he  was  nothing  uxorious,  nor  scarce  indul- 
gent ;  but  companionable  and  respective,  and  without  jealousy. 
Towards  his  children  he  was  full  of  paternal  affection,  careful  of 
their  education,  aspiring  to  their  high  advancement,  regular  to 
see  that  they  should  not  want  of  any  due  honour  and  respect,  but 
not  greatly  willing  to  cast  any  popular  lustre  upon  them. 

To  his  council  he  did  refer  much,  and  sat  oft  in  person;  know- 
ing it  to  be  the  way  to  assist  his  power,  and  inform  his  judgment. 
In  which  respect  also  he  was  fairly  patient  of  liberty,  both  of 
advice,  and  of  vote,  till  himself  were  declared.  He  kept  a  strait 
hand  on  his  nobility,  and  chose  rather  to  advance  clergymen  and 
lawyers,  which  were  more  obsequious  to  him,  but  had  less  interest 
in  the  people ;  which  made  for  his  absoluteness,  but  not  for  his 
safety.  Insomuch  as,  I  am  persuaded,  it  was  one  of  the  causes 
of  his  troublesome  reign ;  for  that  his  nobles,  though  they  were 
loyal  and  obedient,  yet  did  not  co-operate  with  him,  but  let  every 
man  go  his  own  way.  He  was  not  afraid  of  an  able  man,  as  Lewis 
the  eleventh  was  :  but  contrariwise,  he  was  served  by  the  ablest 
men  that  were  to  be  found ;  without  which  his  affairs  could  not 
have  prospered  as  they  did.  For  war,  Bedford,  Oxford,  Surrey, 
Daubeney,  Brook,  Poynings :  for  other  affairs,  Morton,  Fox,  Bray, 
the  prior  of  Lanthony,  Warham,  Urswick,  Hussey,  Frowick,  and 
others.  Neither  did  he  care  how  cunning  they  were  that  he  did 
employ ;  for  he  thought  himself  to  have  the  master-reach.  And 
as  he  chose  well,  so  he  held  them  up  well ;  for  it  is  a  strange 
thing,  that  though  he  were  a  dark  prince,  and  infinitely  suspicious, 
and  his  times  full  of  secret  conspiracies  and  troubles ;  yet  in 
twenty-four  years'  reign,  he  never  put  down,  or  discomposed 
counsellor,  or  near  servant,  save  only  Stanley  the  lord  chamber- 
lain. As  for  the  disposition  of  his  subjects  in  general  towards 
him,  it  stood  thus  with  him ;  that  of  the  three  affections  which 
naturally  tie  the  hearts  of  the  subjects  to  their  sovereigns,  love, 
fear,  and  reverence  ;  he  had  the  last  in  height,  the  second  in  good 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  87 

measure,  and  so  little  of  the  first,  as  he  was  beholden  to  the  other 
two. 

He  was  a  Prince,  sad,23  serious,  and  full  of  thoughts  and  secret 
observations,  and  full  of  notes  and  memorials  of  his  own  hand, 
especially  touching  persons.  As,  whom  to  employ,  whom  to 
reward,  whom  to  inquire  of,  whom  to  beware  of,  what  were  the 
dependencies,  what  were  the  factions,  and  the  like ;  keeping,  as 
it  were,  a  journal  of  his  thoughts.  There  is  to  this  day  a  merry 
tale ;  that  his  monkey,  set  on  as  it  was  thought  by  one  of  his 
chamber,  tore  his  principal  note-book  all  to  pieces,  when  by 
chance  it  lay  forth  :  whereat  the  court,  which  liked  not  these 
pensive 24  accounts,  was  almost  tickled  with  sport. 

He  was  indeed  full  of  apprehensions  and  suspicions  :  but  as  he 
did  easily  take  them,  so  he  did  easily  check  them  and  master  them  ; 
whereby  they  were  not  dangerous,  but  troubled  himself  more  than 
others.  It  is  true,  his  thoughts  were  so  many,  as  they  could  not 
well  always  stand  together ;  but  that  which  did  good  one  way,  did 
hurt  another.  Neither  did  he  at  some  times  weigh  them  aright 
in  their  proportions.  Certainly,  that  rumor  which  did  him  so 
much  mischief,  that  the  duke  of  York  should  be  saved,  and  alive, 
was,  at  the  first,  of  his  own  nourishing ;  because  he  would  have 
more  reason  not  to  reign  in  the  right  of  his  wife.  He  was  affable, 
and  both  well  and  fair-spoken ;  and  would  use  strange  sweetness 
and  blandishments  of  words,  where  he  desired  to  effect  or  per- 
suade any  thing  that  he  took  to  heart.  He  was  rather  studious 
than  learned ;  reading  most  books  that  were  of  any  worth,  in  the 
French  tongue,  yet  he  understood  the  Latin,  as  appeareth  in  that 
cardinal  Adrian  and  others,  who  could  very  well  have  written 
French,  did  use  to  write  to  him  in  Latin. 

For  his  pleasures,  there  is  no  news  of  them  :  and  yet  by  his 
instructions  to  Marsin  and  Stile,  touching  the  Queen  of  Naples,  it 
seemeth  he  could  interrogate  well  touching  beauty.  He  did  by 
pleasures,  as  great  Princes  do  by  banquets,  come  and  look  a  little 

28  grave.  24  weighty. 


88  FRANCIS  BACON. 

upon  them,  and  turn  away.  For  never  Prince  was  more  wholly 
given  to  his  affairs,  nor  in  them  more  of  himself:  insomuch  as  in 
triumphs  of  jousts  and  tourneys,  and  balls,  and  masks,  which  they 
then  called  disguises,  he  was  rather  a  princely  and  gentle  spec- 
tator, than  seemed  much  to  be  delighted. 

No  doubt,  in  him,  as  in  all  men,  and  most  of  all  in  Kings,  his 
fortune  wrought  upon  his  nature,  and  his  nature  upon  his  fortune. 
He  attained  to  the  crown,  not  only  from  a  private  fortune,  which 
might  endow  him  with  moderation ;  but  also  from  the  fortune  of 
an  exiled  man,  which  had  quickened  in  him  all  seeds  of  observa- 
tion and  industry.  And  his  times  being  rather  prosperous  than 
calm,  had  raised  his  confidence  by  success,  but  almost  marred  his 
nature  by  troubles.  His  wisdom,  by  often  evading  from  perils, 
was  turned  rather  into  a  dexterity  to  deliver  himself  from  dangers, 
when  they  pressed  him,  than  into  a  providence  to  prevent  and 
remove  them  afar  off.  And  even  in  nature,  the  sight  of  his  mind 
was  like  some  sights  of  eyes ;  rather  strong  at  hand,  than  to  carry 
afar  off.  For  his  wit  increased  upon  the  occasion  ;  and  so  much 
the  more,  if  the  occasion  were  sharpened  by  danger.  Again, 
whether  it  were  the  shortness  of  his  foresight,  or  the  strength  of 
his  will,  or  the  dazzling  of  his  suspicions,  or  what  it  was ;  certain 
it  is,  that  the  perpetual  troubles  of  his  fortunes,  there  being  no 
more  matter  out  of  which  they  grew,  could  not  have  been  without 
some  great  defects  and  main  errors  in  his  nature,  customs,  and 
proceedings,  which  he  had  enough  to  do  to  save  and  help  with  a 
thousand  little  industries  and  watches.  But  those  do  best  appear 
in  the  story  itself.  Yet  take  him  with  all  his  defects,  if  a  man 
should  compare  him  with  the  Kings  his  concurrents M  in  France 
and  Spain,  he  shall  find  him  more  politic  than  Lewis  the  twelfth 
of  France,  and  more  entire  and  sincere  than  Ferdinando  of  Spain. 
But  if  you  shall  change  Lewis  the  twelfth  for  Lewis  the  eleventh, 
who  lived  a  little  before,  then  the  consort  is  more  perfect. 
For  that  Lewis  the  eleventh,  Ferdinando,  and  Henry  may  be 

25  contemporaries. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  VII.  89 

esteemed  for  the  tres  magi™  of  Kings  of  those  ages.  To  conclude, 
if  this  King  did  no  greater  matters,  it  was  long  of27  himself;  for 
what  he  minded  he  compassed. 

He  was  a  comely  personage,  a  little  above  just  stature,  well  and 
straight  limbed,  but  slender.  His  countenance  was  reverend,  and 
a  little  like  a  churchman  :  and  as  it  was  not  strange  or  dark,  so 
neither  was  it  winning  or  pleasing,  but  as  the  face  of  one  well  dis- 
posed. But  it  was  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  painter,  for  it  was 
best  when  he  spake. 

His  worth  may  bear  a  tale  or  two,  that  may  put  upon  him 
somewhat  that  may  seem  divine.  When  the  lady  Margaret  his 
mother  had  divers  great  suitors  for  marriage,  she  dreamed  one 
night  that  one  in  the  likeness  of  a  bishop  in  pontifical  habit  did 
tender  her  Edmund  earl  of  Richmond,  the  King's  father,  for  her 
husband,  neither  had  she  ever  any  child  but  the  King,  though  she 
had  three  husbands.  One  day  when  King  Henry  the  sixth,  whose 
innocency*  gave  him  holiness,  was  washing  his  hands  at  a  great 
feast,  and  cast  his  eye  upon  King  Henry,  then  a  young  youth,  he 
said ;  "  This  is  the  lad  that  shall  possess  quietly  that,  that  we  now 
strive  for."  But  that,  that  was  truly  divine  in  him,  was  that  he 
had  the  fortune  of  a  true  Christian,  as  well  as  of  a  great  King,  in 
living  exercised,  and  dying  repentant :  So  as  he  had  an  happy 
warfare  in  both  conflicts,  both  of  sin,  and  the  cross. 

He  was  born  at  Pembroke  castle,  and  lieth  buried  at  West- 
minster, in  one  of  the  stateliest  and  daintiest  monuments  of 
Europe,  both  for  the  chapel,  and  for  the  sepulchre.  So  that  he 
dwelleth  more  richly  dead,  in  the  monument  of  his  tomb,  than 
he  did  alive  in  Richmond,  or  any  of  his  palaces.  I  could  wish 
he  did  the  like  in  this  monument  of  his  fame. 

26  three  wise  men.  2:  owing  to. 

*  mental  weakness. 


V. 

BEN    JONSON. 

(1574-1637.) 

TIMBER,   OR  DISCOVERIES  MADE  UPON  MEW  AND 
MATTER. 

[Written  after  1630.] 

IT  pleased  your  lordship  of  late,  to  ask  my  opinion  touching 
the  education  of  your  sons,  and  especially  to  the  advancement  of 
their  studies.  To  which,  though  I  returned  somewhat  for  the 
present,  which  rather  manifested  a  will  in  me,  than  gave  any  just 
resolution  to  the  thing  propounded ;  I  have  upon  better  cogitation 
called  those  aids  about  me,  both  of  mind  and  memory,  which 
shall  venture  my  thoughts  clearer,  if  not  fuller,  to  your  lordship's 
demand.  I  confess,  my  lord,  they  will  seem  but  petty  and  minute 
things  I  shall  offer  to  you,  being  writ  for  children,  and  of  them. 
But  studies  have  their  infancy,  as  well  as  creatures.  We  see  in 
men  even  the  strongest  compositions  had  their  beginnings  from 
milk  and  the  cradle ;  and  the  wisest  tarried  sometimes  about 
apting1  their  mouths  to  letters  and  syllables.  In  their  education, 
therefore,  the  care  must  be  the  greater  had  of  their  beginnings,  to 
know,  examine,  and  weigh  their  natures ;  which  though  they  be 
proner  in  some  children  to  some  disciplines ;  yet  are  they  naturally 
prompt  to  taste  all  by  degrees,  and  with  change.  For  change  is 
a  kind  of  refreshing  in  studies,  and  infuseth  knowledge  by  way  of 
recreation.  Thence  the  school  itself  is  called  a  play  or  game ; 
and  all  letters  are  so  best  taught  to  scholars.  They  should  not  be 
affrighted  or  deterred  in  their  entry,  but  drawn  on  with  exercise 

1  fitting. 
90 


DISCO  VERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MA  TTER.        91 

and  emulation.  A  youth  should  not  be  made  to  hate  study,  before 
he  know  the  causes  to  love  it ;  or  taste  the  bitterness  before  the 
sweet ;  but  called  on  and  allured,  intreated  and  praised ;  yea, 
when  he  deserves  it  not.  For  which  cause  I  wish  them  sent  to  the 
best  school,  and  a  public,  which  I  think  the  best.  Your  lordship, 
I  fear,  hardly  hears  of  that,  as  willing  to  breed  them  in  your  eye, 
and  at  home,  and  doubting  their  manners  may  be  corrupted 
abroad.  They  are  in  more  danger  in  your  own  family,  among 
ill  servants,  (allowing  they  be  safe  in  their  school- master)  than 
amongst  a  thousand  boys,  however  immodest.  Would  we  did  not 
spoil  our  own  children,  and  overthrow  their  manners  ourselves  by 
too  much  indulgence  !  To  breed  them  at  home,  is  to  breed  them 
in  a  shade ;  where  in  a  school  they  have  the  light  and  heat  of  the 
sun. 

They  are  used  and  accustomed  to  things  and  men.  When  they 
come  forth  into  the  commonwealth,  they  find  nothing  new,  or  to 
seek.  They  have  made  their  friendships  and  aids,  some  to  last 
their  age.  They  hear  what  is  commanded  to  others  as  well  as 
themselves.  Much  approved,  much  corrected ;  all  which  they 
bring  to  their  own  store  and  use,  and  learn  as  much  as  they  hear. 
Eloquence  would  be  but  a  poor  thing,  if  we  should  only  converse 
with  singulars ; 2  speak  but  man  and  man  together.  Therefore  I 
like  no  private  breeding.  I  would  send  them  where  their  industry 
should  be  daily  increased  by  praise  ;  and  that  kindled  by  emula- 
tion. It  is  a  good  thing  to  inflame  the  mind,  and  though  ambition 
itself  be  a  vice,  it  is  often  the  cause  of  great  virtue.  Give  me 
that  wit  whom  praise  excites,  glory  puts  on,  or  disgrace  grieves ; 
he  is  to  be  nourished  with  ambition,  pricked  forward  with  honour, 
checked  with  reprehension,  and  never  to  be  suspected  of  sloth. 
Though  he  be  given  to  play,  it  is  a  sign  of  spirit  and  liveliness,  so 
there  be  a  mean  had  of  their  sports  and  relaxations.  And  from 
the  rod  and  ferule,  I  would  have  them  free,  as  from  the  menace  of 
them ;  for  it  is  both  deformed3  and  servile. 

2  single  persons.  8  degrading. 


92  BEN 

De  stylo,  et  optimo  scribendi  genere*  For  a  man  to  write  well, 
there  are  required  three  necessaries :  to  read  the  best  authors, 
observe  the  best  speakers,  and  much  exercise  of  his  own  style. 
In  style  to  consider  what  ought  to  be  written,  and  after  what 
manner;  he  must  first  think  and  excogitate  his  matter,  then 
choose  his  words,  and  examine  the  weight  of  either.  Then  take 
care  in  placing  and  ranking  both  matter  and  words,  that  the  com- 
position be  comely,  and  to  do  this  with  diligence  and  often.  No 
matter  how  slow  the  style  be  at  first,  so  it  be  laboured  and  accu- 
rate;  seek  the  best,  and  be  not  glad  of  the  froward5  conceits, 
or  first  words,  that  offer  themselves  to  us,  but  judge  of  what  we 
invent,  and  order  what  we  approve.  Repeat  often  what  we  have 
formerly  written ;  which  beside  that  it  helps  the  consequence,  and 
makes  the  juncture  better,  it  quickens  the  heat  of  imagination, 
that  often  cools  in  the  time  of  setting  down,  and  gives  it  new 
strength,  as  if  it  grew  lustier  by  the  going  back.  As  we  see  in  the 
contention  of  leaping,  they  jump  farthest,  that  fetch  their  race 
largest ;  or,  as  in  throwing  a  dart  or  javelin,  we  force  back  our 
arms,  to  make  our  loose  the  stronger.  Yet,  if  we  have  a  fair  gale 
of  wind,  I  forbid  not  the  steering  out  of  our  sail,  so  the  favour  of 
the  gale  deceive  us  not.  For  all  that  we  invent  doth  please  us  in 
conception  of  birth,  else  we  would  never  set  it  down.  But  the 
safest  is  to  return  to  our  judgment,  and  handle  over  again  those 
things,  the  easiness  of  which  might  make  them  justly  suspected. 
So  did  the  best  writers  in  their  beginnings ;  they  imposed  upon 
themselves  care  and  industry ;  they  did  nothing  rashly ;  they 
obtained  first  to  write  well,  and  then  custom  made  it  easy  and  a 
habit.  By  little  and  little  their  matter  shewed  itself  to  them  more 
plentifully ;  their  words  answered,  their  composition  followed  ;  and 
all,  as  in  a  well-ordered  family,  presented  itself  in  the  place.  So 
that  the  sum  of  all  is,  ready  writing  makes  not  good  writing ;  but 
good  writing  brings  on  ready  writing ;  yet,  when  we  think  we  have 
got  the  faculty,  it  is  even  then  good  to  resist  it ;  as  to  give  a  horse 

*  On  style,  and  (he  best  kind  of  writing.  5  (?)  forward,  as  Schelling. 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.        93 

a  check  sometimes  with  a  bit,  which  does  not  so  much  stop  his 
course,  as  stir  his  mettle.  Again,  whether  a  man's  genius  is  best 
able  to  reach,  thither  it  should  more  and  more  contend,  lift,  and 
dilate  itself,  as  men  of  low  stature  raise  themselves  on  their  toes, 
and  so  oft-times  get  even,  if  not  eminent.  Besides,  as  it  is  fit  for 
grown  and  able  writers  to  stand  of  themselves,  and  work  with 
their  own  strength,  to  trust  and  endeavour  by  their  own  faculties  : 
so  it  is  fit  for  the  beginner  and  learner  to  study  others 
and  the  best.  For  the  mind  and  memory  are  more  sharply 
exercised  in  comprehending  another  man's  things  than  our 
own ;  and  such  as  accustom  themselves,  and  are  familiar  with  the 
best  authors,  shall  ever  and  anon  find  somewhat  of  them  in  them- 
selves, and  in  the  expression  of  their  minds,  even  when  they  feel 
it  not,  be  able  to  utter  something  like  theirs,  which  hath  an 
authority  above  their  own.  Nay,  sometimes  it  is  the  reward  of  a 
man's  study,  the  praise  of  quoting  another  man  fitly ;  and  though 
a  man  be  more  prone,  and  able  for  one  kind  of  writing  than 
another,  yet  he  must  exercise  all.  For  as  in  an  instrument,  so  in 
style,  there  must  be  a  harmony  and  consent  of  parts. 

I  take  this  labour  in  teaching  others,  that  they  should  not  be 
always  to  be  taught,  and  I  would  bring  my  precepts  into  practice  : 
for  rules  are  ever  of  less  force  and  value  than  experiments  :  yet 
with  this  purpose,  rather  to  show  the  right  way  to  those  that  come 
after,  than  to  detect  any  that  have  slipt  before  by  error,  and  I 
hope  it  will  be  more  profitable.  For  men  do  more  willingly  listen, 
and  with  more  favour,  to  precept,  than  reprehension.  Among 
divers  opinions  of  an  art,  and  most  of  them  contrary  in  them- 
selves, it  is  hard  to  make  election ;  and  therefore  though  a  man 
cannot  invent  new  things  after  so  many,  he  may  do  a  welcome 
work  yet  to  help  posterity  to  judge  rightly  of  the  old.  But  arts 
and  precepts  avail  nothing,  except  nature  be  beneficial  and  aiding. 
And  therefore  these  things  are  no  more  written  to  a  dull  disposi- 
tion, than  rules  of  husbandry  to  a  soil.  No  precepts  will  profit  a 
fool,  no  more  than  beauty  will  the  blind,  or  music  the  deaf.  As 
we  should  take  care  that  our  style  in  writing  be  neither  dry  nor 


94  BEN  JONSON. 

empty ;  we  should  look  again  it  be  not  winding,  or  wanton  with 
far-fetched  descriptions  ;  either  is  a  vice.  But  that  is  worse  which 
proceeds  out  of  want,  than  that  which  riots  out  of  plenty.  The 
remedy  of  fruitfulness  is  easy,  but  no  labour  will  help  the  contrary ; 
I  will  like  and  praise  some  things  in  a  young  writer ;  which  yet,  if 
he  continue  in,  I  cannot  but  justly  hate  him  for  the  same.  There 
is  a  time  to  be  given  all  things  for  maturity,  and  that  even  your 
country  husbandman  can  teach ;  who  to  a  young  plant  will  not 
put  the  pruning-knife,  because  it  seems  to  fear  the  iron,  as  not 
able  to  admit  the  scar.  No  more  would  I  tell  a  green  writer  all 
his  faults,  lest  I  should  make  him  grieve  and  faint,  and  at  last 
despair.  For  nothing  doth  more  hurt  than  to  make  him  so  afraid 
of  all  things,  as  he  can  endeavour  nothing.  Therefore  youth 
ought  to  be  instructed  betimes,  and  in  the  best  things ;  for  we 
hold  those  longest  we  take  soonest :  as  the  first  scent  of  a  vessel 
lasts,  and  the  tinct6  the  wool  first  receives;  therefore  a  master 
should  temper  his  own  powers,  and  descend  to  the  other's  infirm- 
ity. If  you  pour  a  glut  of  water  upon  a  bottle,  it  receives  little 
of  it ;  but  with  a  funnell,  and  by  degrees,  you  shall  fill  many  of 
them,  and  spill  little  of  your  own ;  to  their  capacity  they  will 
all  receive  and  be  full.  And  as  it  is  fit  to  read  the  best  authors 
to  youth  first,  so  let  them  be  of  the  openest  and  clearest.7  As 
Livy  before  Sallust,  Sidney  before  Donne  :  and  beware  of  letting 
them  taste  Gower,  or  Chaucer  at  first,  lest  falling  too  much  in  love 
with  antiquity,  and  not  apprehending  the  weight,  they  grow  rough 
and  barren  in  language  only.  When  their  judgments  are  firm, 
and  out  of  danger,  let  them  read  both  the  old  and  the  new ;  but 
no  less  take  heed  that  their  new  flowers  and  sweetness  do  not  as 
much  corrupt  as  the  others'  dryness  and  squalor,  if  they  choose 
not  carefully.  Spenser,  in  affecting  the  ancients,  writ  no  language  ; 
yet  I  would  have  him  read  for  his  matter,  but  as  Virgil  read 
Ennius.  The  reading  of  Homer  and  Virgil  is  counselled  by 

8  dye. 

7  Livy,  Sallust,  Sidney,  Donne,  Gower,  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Virgil,  Ennius, 
Homer,  Quintilian,  Plautus,  Terence.  — JONSON'S  note. 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.        95 

Quintilian,  as  the  best  way  of  informing  youth,  and  confirming 
man.  For,  besides  that  the  mind  is  raised  with  the  height  and 
sublimity  of  such  a  verse,  it  takes  spirit  from  the  greatness  of  the 
matter,  and  is  tincted  with  the  best  things.  Tragic  and  lyric 
poetry  is  good  too,  and  comic  with  the  best,  if  the  manners  of 
the  reader  be  once  in  safety.  In  the  Greek  poets,  as  also  in 
Plautus,  we  shall  see  the  economy  and  disposition  of  poems 
better  observed  than  in  Terence  ;  and  the  latter,  who  thought  the 
sole  grace  and  virtue  of  their  fable  the  sticking  in  of  sentences,  as 
ours  do  the  forcing  in  of  jests. 

We  should  not  protect  our  sloth  with  the  patronage  of  difficulty. 
It  is  a  false  quarrel  against  nature,  that  she  helps  understanding 
but  in  a  few,  when  the  most  part  of  mankind  are  inclined  by  her 
thither,  if  they  would  take  the  pains ;  no  less  than  birds  to  fly, 
horses  to  run,  etc.,  which  if  they  lose,  it  is  through  their  own 
sluggishness,  and  by  that  means  become  her  prodigies,  not  her 
children.  I  confess,  nature  in  children  is  more  patient  of  labour 
in  study,  than  in  age ;  for  the  sense  of  the  pain,  the  judgment  of 
the  labour  is  absent ;  they  do  not  measure  what  they  have  done. 
And  it  is  the  thought  and  consideration  that  affects  us  more  than 
the  weariness  itself.  Plato  was  not  content  with  the  learning 
that  Athens  could  give  him,  but  sailed  into  Italy,  for  Pythagoras' 
knowledge  :  and  yet  not  thinking  himself  sufficiently  informed, 
went  into  Egypt,  to  the  priests,  and  learned  their  mysteries.  He 
laboured,  so  must  we.  Many  things  may  be  learned  together,  and 
performed  in  one  point  of  time :  as  musicians  exercise  their 
memory,  their  voice,  their  fingers,  and  sometimes  their  head  and 
feet  at  once.  And  so  a  preacher,  in  the  invention  of  matter, 
election  of  words,  composition  of  gesture,  look,  pronunciation, 
motion,  useth  all  these  faculties  at  once  :  and  if  we  can  express 
this  variety  together,  why  should  not  divers  studies,  at  divers  hours, 
delight,  when  the  variety  is  able  alone  to  refresh  and  repair  us  ? 
As  when  a  man  is  weary  of  writing,  to  read ;  and  then  again  of 
reading,  to  write.  Wherein,  howsoever  we  do  many  things,  yet  are 
we  (in  a  sort)  still  fresh  to  what  we  begin ;  we  are  recreated  with 


96  BEN  JONSON. 

change,  as  the  stomach  is  with  meats.  But  some  will  say,  this 
variety  breeds  confusion,  and  makes,  that  either  we  lose  all,  or  hold 
no  more  than  the  last.  Why  do  we  not  then  persuade  husband- 
men that  they  should  not  till  land,  help  it  with  marie,  lime  and 
compost  ?  plant  hop-gardens,  prune  trees,  look  to  bee-hives,  rear 
sheep,  and  all  other  cattle  at  once  ?  It  is  easier  to  do  many  things 
and  continue,  than  to  do  one  thing  long. 

It  is  not  the  passing  through  these  learnings  that  hurts  us,  but 
the  dwelling  and  sticking  about  them.  To  descend  to  those  extreme 
anxieties  and  foolish  cavils  of  grammarians,  i»  able  to  break  a  wit 
in  pieces,  being  a  work  of  manifold  misery  and  vainness,  to  be 
elementarii  senes*  Yet  even  letters  are  as  it  were  the  bank  of 
words,  and  restore  themselves  to  an  author,  as  the  pawns  of  lan- 
guage :  but  talking  and  eloquence  are  not  the  same  :  to  speak,  and 
to  speak  well,  are  two  things.  A  fool  may  talk,  but  a  wise  man 
speaks,  and  out  of  the  observation,  knowledge,  and  the  use  of  things, 
many  writers  perplex  their  readers  and  hearers  with  mere  nonsense. 
Their  writings  need  sunshine.  Pure  and  neat  language  I  love,  yet 
plain  and  customary.  A  barbarous  phrase  has  often  made  me  out 
of  love  with  a  good  sense,  and  doubtful  writing  hath  wracked  me 
beyond  my  patience.  The  reason  why  a  poet  is  said  that  he  ought 
to  have  all  knowledges  is,  that  he  should  not  be  ignorant  of  the 
most,  especially  of  those  he  will  handle.  And  indeed,  when  the 
attaining  of  them  is  possible,  it  were  a  sluggish  and  base  thing  to 
despair.  For  frequent  imitation  of  any  thing  becomes  a  habit 
quickly.  If  a  man  should  prosecute  as  much  as  could  be  said  of 
every  thing,  his  work  would  find  no  end. 

Speech  is  the  only  benefit  man  hath  to  express  his  excellency  of 
mind  above  other  creatures.  It  is  the  instrument  of  society; 
therefore  Mercury,  who  is  the  president  of  language,  is  called 
Deorum  hominumque  interpret?  In  all  speech,  words  and  sense 
are  as  the  body  and  the  soul.  The  sense  is,  as  the  life  and  soul  of 

8  old  schoolmasters.  —  After  SENECA,  Epist.  36. 

9  Interpreter  of  gods   and  men.      Cf.   Jnterpres  Divum,  VIRGIL, 

IV.  377- 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.        97 

language,  without  which  all  words  are  dead.  Sense  is  wrought  out 
of  experience,  the  knowledge  of  human  life  and  actions,  or  of  the 
liberal  arts,  which  the  Greeks  called  'Ev/cvKAorratSetav.*  Words  are 
the  people's,  yet  there  is  a  choice  of  them  to  be  made.  For  Ver- 
borum  delectus  origo  est  eloquentice™  They  are  to  be  chose  accord- 
ing to  the  persons  we  make  speak,  or  the  things  we  speak  of. 
Some  are  of  the  camp,  some  of  the  council-board,  some  of  the 
shop,  some  of  the  sheep-cote,  some  of  the  pulpit,  some  of  the  bar, 
&c.  And  herein  is  seen  their  elegance  and  propriety,  when  we  use 
them  fitly,  and  draw  them  forth  to  their  just  strength  and  nature,  by 
way  of  translation  or  metaphor.  But  in  this  translation  we  must 
only  serve  necessity  (Nam  temere  nihil  transfertur  a  prudentt) ," 
or  commodity,  which  is  a  kind  of  necessity :  that  is,  when  we 
either  absolutely  want  a  word  to  express  by,  and  that  is  necessity ; 
or  when  we  have  not  so  fit  a  word,  and  that  is  commodity ;  as 
when  we  avoid  loss  by  it,  and  escape  obsceneness,  and  gain  in  the 
grace  and  property  which  helps  significance.  Metaphors  far-fet,12 
hinder  to  be  understood ;  and  affected,  lose  their  grace.  Or 
when  the  person  fetcheth  his  translations  from  a  wrong  place.  As 
if  a  privy-counsellor  should  at  the  table  take  his  metaphor  from  a 
dicing-house,  or  ordinary,  or  a  vintner's  vault ;  or  a  justice  of  peace 
draw  his  similitudes  from  the  mathematics,  or  a  divine  from  a 
bawdy-house,  or  taverns ;  or  a  gentleman  of  Northamptonshire, 
Warwickshire,  or  the  Midland,  should  fetch  all  the  illustrations  to 
his  country  neighbours  from  shipping,  and  tell  them  of  the  main- 
sheet  and  the  boulin.13  Metaphors  are  thus  many  times  deformed. 
.  .  .  All  attempts  that  are  new  in  this  kind,  are  dangerous,  and 
somewhat  hard,  before  they  be  softened  with  use.  A  man  coins 
not  a  new  word  without  some  peril,  and  less  fruit ;  for  if  it  happen 
to  be  received,  the  praise  is  but  moderate ;  if  refused,  the  scorn  is 

10  The  choice  of  words  is  the  source  of  eloquence.  — JULIUS  CAESAR,  as  stated 
by  CICERO,  Brutus,  chap.  72;    quoted  also  in  Dryden's  Essay  of  Drama  tit 
Poesy. 

11  For  no  metaphor  is  rashly  used  by  a  wise  man.  —  QuiNTlLlAN,  Inst. 
VIII.  6,  4. 

12  far-fetched.  13  bow-line.  *  Encyclopedia,  general  education. 


98  BEN  JONSOlV. 

assured.  Yet  we  must  adventure ;  for  things,  at  first  hard  and 
rough,  are  by  use  made  tender  and  gentle.  It  is  an  honest  error 
that  is  committed,  following  great  chiefs. 

Custom  is  the  most  certain  mistress  of  language,  as  the  public 
stamp  makes  the  current  money.  But  we  must  not  be  too  fre- 
quent with  the  mint,  every  day  coining,  nor  fetch  words  from  the 
extreme  and  utmost  ages ;  since  the  chief  virtue  of  a  style  is  per- 
spicuity, and  nothing  so  vicious  in  it  as  to  need  an  interpreter. 
Words  borrowed  of  antiquity  do  lend  a  kind  of  majesty  to  style, 
and  are  not  without  their  delight  sometimes.  For  they  have  the 
authority  of  years,  and  out  of  their  intermission  do  win  themselves 
a  kind  of  grace-like  newness.  But  the  eldest  of  the  present,  and 
newness  *  of  the  past  language,  is  the  best.  For  what  was  the  ancient 
language,  which  some  men  so  dote  upon,  but  the  ancient  custom  ? 
yet  when  I  name  custom,  I  understand  not  the  vulgar  custom ;  for 
that  were  a  precept  no  less  dangerous  to  language  than  life,  if  we 
should  speak  or  live  after  the  manners  of  the  vulgar :  but  that  I 
call  custom  of  speech,  which  is  the  consent  of  the  learned ;  as 
custom  of  life,  which  is  the  consent  of  the  good.  Virgil  was  most 
loving  of  antiquity ;  yet  how  rarely  doth  he  insert  aquai,  and 
pictai !^  Lucretius  is  scabrous  and  rough  in  these;  he  seeks 
them;  as  some  do  Chaucerisms  with  us,  which  were  better  ex- 
punged and  banished.  Some  words  are  to  be  culled  out  for 
ornament  and  color,  as  we  gather  flowers  to  strew  houses,  or 
make  garlands  ;  but  they  are  better  when  they  grow  to  our  style  ; 
as  in  a  meadow,  where  though  the  mere  grass  and  greenness 
delight,  yet  the  variety  of  flowers  doth  heighten  and  beautify. 
Marry,  we  must  not  play  or  riot  too  much  with  them,  as  in 
Paronomasies  f  ;  nor  use  too  swelling  or  ill-sounding  words  ;  Qua; 
per  salebras,  altaque  saxa  cadunt. 1S  It  is  true,  there  is  no  sound 
but  shall  find  some  lovers,  as  the  bitterest  confections  are  grateful 
to  some  palates.  Our  composition  must  be  more  accurate  in  the 

14  Archaic  Latin  genitives. 

15  Which  tumble  over  rough  places  and  high  rocks.  —  MARTIAL,  Epigrantst 
Book  XL  91.  2.  *  newest.     Cunningham  and  Schelling.  f  Puns. 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.        99 

beginning  and  end  than  in  the  midst,  and  in  the  end  more  than  in 
the  beginning ;  for  through  the  midst  the  stream  bears  us.  And 
this  is  attained  by  custom  more  than  care  or  diligence.  We 
must  express  readily  and  fully,  not  profusely.  There  is  a  differ- 
ence between  a  liberal  and  prodigal  hand.  As  it  is  a  great 
point  of  art,  when  our  matter  requires  it,  to  enlarge  and  veer  out 
all  sail ;  so  to  take  it  in  and  contract  it,  is  of  no  less  praise,  when 
the  argument  doth  ask  it.  Either  of  them  hath  their  fitness  in  the 
place.  A  good  man  always  profits  by  his  endeavour,  by  his  help, 
yea,  when  he  is  absent,  nay,  when  he  is  dead,  by  his  example  and 
memory.  So  good  authors  in  their  style  :  a  strict  and  succinct 
style  is  that,  where  you  can  take  away  nothing  without  loss,  and 
that  loss  to  be  manifest. 

The  brief  style  is  that  which  expresseth  much  in  little.  The 
concise  style,  which  expresseth  not  enough,  but  leaves  somewhat 
to  be  understood.  The  abrupt  style,  which  hath  many  breaches, 
and  doth  not  seem  to  end,  but  fall.  The  congruent  and  har- 
monious fitting  of  parts  in  a  sentence  hath  almost  the  fastening 
and  force  of  knitting  and  connection ;  as  in  stones  well  squared, 
which  will  rise  strong  a  great  way  without  mortar. 

Periods  are  beautiful,  when  they  are  not  too  long ;  for  so  they 
have  their  strength  too,  as  in  a  pike  or  javelin.  As  we  must  take 
the  care  that  our  words  and  sense  be  clear ;  so  if  the  obscurity 
happen  through  the  hearer's  or  reader's  want  of  understanding, 
I  am  not  to  answer  for  them,  no  more  than  for  their  not  listening 
or  marking ;  I  must  neither  find  them  ears  nor  mind.  But  a  man 
cannot  put  a  word  so  in  sense,  but  something  about  it  will  illus- 
trate it,  if  the  writer  understand  himself.  For  order  helps  much 
to  perspicuity,  as  confusion  hurts.  Rectitudo  lucem  adfert; 
obliquitas  et  circumductio  offuscat. 16  We  should  therefore  speak 
what  we  can  the  nearest  way,  so  as  we  keep  our  gait,  not  leap ; 
for  too  short  may  as  well  be  not  let  into  the  memory,  as  too  long 
not  kept  in.  Whatsoever  loseth  the  grace  and  clearness,  converts 

16  Directness  brings  light ;    indirectness  and  circumlocution  darkens. 


100  BEN  JONSON. 

into  a  riddle  :  the  obscurity  is  marked,  but  not  the  value.  That 
perisheth,  and  is  passed  by  like  the  pearl  in  the  fable.  Our  style 
should  be  like  a  skein  of  silk,  to  be  carried  and  found  by  the 
right  thread,  not  ravelled  and  perplexed ;  then  all  is  a  knot,  a 
heap.  There  are  words  that  do  as  much  raise  a  style,  as  others  can 
depress  it.  Superlation  and  overmuchness  amplifies.  It  may  be 
above  faith,  but  never  above  a  mean.  It  was  ridiculous  in  Ces- 
tius,  when  he  said  of  Alexander  : 

f remit  oceanus,  quasi  indignetur,  quod  terras  relinquas  ;** 

but  propitiously  from  Virgil : 

—  Credas  innare  revulsas 
Cycladas.1* 

He  doth  not  say  it  was  so,  but  seemed  to  be  so.  Although  it 
be  somewhat  incredible,  that  is  excused  before  it  be  spoken.  But 
there  are  hyperboles  which  will  become  one  language,  that  will  by 
no  means  admit  another.  As,  Eos  esse  P.  R.  exercitus,  qui  coelum 
possint  perrumpere™  who  would  say  with  us,  but  a  madman  ? 
Therefore  we  must  consider  in  every  tongue  what  is  used,  what 
received.  Quintilian  warns  us,  that  in  no  kind  of  translation,  or 
metaphor,  or  allegory,  we  make  a  turn  from  what  we  began ;  as  if 
we  fetch  the  original  of  our  metaphor  from  sea,  and  billows,  we 
end  not  in  flames  and  ashes :  it  is  a  most  foul  inconsequence. 
Neither  must  we  draw  out  our  allegory  too  long,  lest  either  we 
make  ourselves  obscure,  or  fall  into  affectation,  which  is  childish. 
But  why  do  men  depart  at  all  from  the  right  and  natural  ways  of 
speaking  ?  sometimes  for  necessity,  when  we  are  driven,  or  think 
it  fitter  to  speak  that  in  obscure  words,  or  by  circumstance,  which 
uttered  plainly  would  offend  the  hearers.  Or  to  avoid  obscene- 

17  The  ocean  rages  as  if  it  were  angry  because  you  are  leaving  the  land.  — 
SENECA,  Suasoria,  I.  n. 

18  You  would  think  that  the  Cycladcs  plucked  up  were  swimming.  —  VIRGIL, 
sEneid,  VIII.  691,  692. 

19  That  the  armies  of  the  Roman  people  are  those  who  can  break  through 
heaven,  —  C^SAR,  De  Bella  Hispaniensi,  42. 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.      lOl 

ness,  or  sometimes  for  pleasure,  and  variety,  as  travellers  turn  out 
of  the  highway,  drawn  either  by  the  commodity  of  a  foot-path,  or 
the  delicacy  or  freshness  of  the  fields.  And  all  this  is  called 
ecr^v;/xaTio-/x.€V77,  or  figured  language. 

Language  most  shews  a  man  :  Speak,  that  I  may  see  thee. 
It  springs  out  of  the  most  retired  and  inmost  parts  of  us,  and 
is  the  image  of  the  parent  of  it,  the  mind.  No  glass  renders 
a  man's  form,  or  likeness  so  true  as  his  speech.  Nay,  it  is  likened 
to  a  man  :  and  as  we  consider  feature  and  composition  in  a  man, 
so  words  in  language ;  in  the  greatness,  aptness,  sound,  structure, 
and  harmony  of  it. 

Some  men  are  tall  and  big,  so  some  language  is  high  and  great. 
Then  the  words  are  chosen,  their  sound  ample,  the  composition 
full,  the  absolution  plenteous,  and  poured  out,  all  grave,  sinewy, 
and  strong.  Some  are  little  and  dwarfs  ;  so  of  speech  it  is  hum- 
ble and  low,  the  words  poor  and  flat,  the  members  and  periods 
thin  and  weak,  without  knitting  or  number. 

The  middle  are  of  a  just  stature.  There  the  language  is  plain 
and  pleasing  ;  even  without  stopping,  round  without  swelling  :  all 
well-torned,  composed,  elegant  and  accurate. 

The  vicious  language  is  vast,  and  gaping,  swelling,  and  irregular  : 
when  it  contends  to  be  high,  full  of  rock,  mountain,  and  pointed- 
ness  :  as  it  affects  to  be  low,  it  is  abject,  and  creeps,  full  of  bogs 
and  holes.  And  according  to  their  subject  these  styles  vary,  and 
lose  their  names :  for  that  which  is  high  and  lofty,  declaring 
excellent  matter,  becomes  vast  and  tumorous,  speaking  of  petty 
and  inferior  things :  so  that  which  was  even  and  apt  in  a  mean 
and  plain  subject,  will  appear  most  poor  and  humble  in  a  high 
argument.  Would  you  not  laugh  to  meet  a  great  counsellor  of 
state  in  a  flat  cap,  with  his  trunk  hose,  and  a  hobby-horse  cloak, 
his  gloves  under  his  girdle,  and  yond  haberdasher  in  a  velvet  gown, 
furred  with  sables  ?  There  is  a  certain  latitude  in  these  things,  by 
which  we  find  the  degrees. 

The  next  thing  to  the  stature,  is  the  figure  and  feature  in  lan- 
guage ;  that  is,  whether  it  be  round  and  straight,  which  consists  of 


102  BEN  JONSON. 

short  and  succinct  periods,  numerous  and  polished,  or  square  and 
firm,  which  is  to  have  equal  and  strong  parts  every  where  answer- 
able, and  weighed. 

The  third  is  the  skin  and  coat,  which  rests  in  the  well-joining, 
cementing,  coagmentation  of  words ;  when  as  it  is  smooth,  gentle, 
and  sweet,  like  a  table  upon  which  you  may  run  your  finger 
without  rubs,  and  your  nail  cannot  find  a  joint ;  not  horrid,  rough, 
wrinkled,  gaping,  or  chapt :  after  these,  the  flesh,  blood,  and 
bones  come  in  question. 

We  say  it  is  a  fleshy  style,  when  there  is  much  periphrasis,  and 
circuit  of  words ;  and  when  with  more  than  enough,  it  grows  fat 
and  corpulent ;  arvina  orationis,  full  of  suet  and  tallow.  It  hath 
blood  and  juice  when  the  words  are  proper  and  apt,  their  sound 
sweet,  and  the  phrase  neat  and  picked. 

But  where  there  is  redundancy,  both  the  blood  and  juice  are 
faulty  and  vicious :  Redundat  sanguine,  quid  multb  plus  dicit, 
quam  necesse  est?*  Juice  in  language  is  somewhat  less  than  blood  ; 
for  if  the  words  be  but  becoming  and  signifying,  and  the  sense 
gentle,  there  is  juice ;  but  where  that  wanteth,  the  language  is 
thin,  flagging,  poor,  starved,  scarce  covering  the  bone,  and  shews 
like  stones  in  a  sack. 

Some  men,  to  avoid  redundancy,  run  into  that ;  and  while  they 
strive  to  have  no  ill  blood  or  juice,  they  lose  their  good.  There  be 
some  styles  again,  that  have  not  less  blood,  but  less  flesh  and  cor- 
pulence. These  are  bony  and  sinewy ;  Ossa  habent,  et  nervos?1 

It  was  well  noted  by  the  late  Lord  St.  Alban,  that  the  study  of 
words  is  the  first  distemper  of  learning ;  vain  matter  the  second  ; 
and  a  third  distemper  is  deceit,  or  the  likeness  of  truth ;  impos- 
ture held  up  by  credulity.  All  these  are  the  cobwebs  of  learning, 
and  to  let  them  grow  in  us,  is  either  sluttish,  or  foolish.  Nothing 
is  more  ridiculous  than  to  make  an  author  a  dictator,  as  the 
schools  have  done  Aristotle.  The  damage  is  infinite  knowledge 
receives  by  it ;  for  to  many  things  a  man  should  owe  but  a  tem- 

20  //  abounds  in  blood  [i.e.,  force]  because  it  says  much  more  than  is  neces- 
sary.—  Cf.  QUINTILIAN,  Inst.  X.  I,  56-  21  They  have  bones  and  sinews. 


DISCOVERIES  MADE    UPON  MEN  AND  MATTER.      103 

porary  belief,  and  suspension  of  his  own  judgment,  not  an  abso- 
lute resignation  of  himself,  or  a  perpetual  captivity.  Let  Aristotle 
and  others  have  their  dues ;  but  if  we  can  make  farther  discov- 
eries of  truth  and  fitness  than  they,  why  are  we  envied?  Let  us 
beware,  while  we  strive  to  add,  we  do  not  diminish,  or  deface  ;  we 
may  improve  but  not  augment.  By  discrediting  falsehood,  truth 
grows  in  request.  We  must  not  go  about,  like  men  anguished  and 
perplexed,  for  vicious  affectation  of  praise  :  but  calmly  study  the 
separation  of  opinions,  find  the  errors  have  intervened,  awake 
antiquity,  call  former  times  into  question;  but  make  no  parties 
with  the  present,  nor  follow  any  fierce  undertakers,  mingle  no 
matter  of  doubtful  credit  with  the  simplicity  of  truth,  but  gently 
stir  the  mould  about  the  root  of  the  question,  and  avoid  all 
digladiations,  facility  of  credit,  or  superstitious  simplicity,  seek  the 
consonancy,  and  concatenation  of  truth ;  stoop  only  to  point  of 
necessity,  and  what  leads  to  convenience.  Then  make  exact 
animadversion  where  style  hath  degenerated,  where  flourished 
and  thrived  in  choiceness  of  phrase,  round  and  clean  composition 
of  sentence,  sweet  falling  of  the  clause,  varying  an  illustration 
by  tropes  and  figures,  weight  of  matter,  worth  of  subject,  sound- 
ness of  argument,  life  of  invention,  and  depth  of  judgment.  This 
is  monte  potiri,  to  get  the  hill ;  for  no  perfect  discovery  can  be 
made  upon  a  flat  or  a  level. 

Now  that  I  have  informed  you  in  the  knowing  these  things,  let 
me  lead  you  by  the  hand  a  little  farther,  in  the  direction  of  the  use, 
and  make  you  an  able  writer  by  practice.  The  conceits  of  the 
mind  are  pictures  of  things,  and  the  tongue  is  the  interpreter  of 
those  pictures.  The  order  of  God's  creatures  in  themselves  is  not 
only  admirable  and  glorious,  but  eloquent :  then  he  who  could 
apprehend  the  consequence  of  things  in  their  truth,  and  utter  his 
apprehensions  as  truly,  were  the  best  writer  or  speaker.  There- 
fore Cicero  said  much,  when  he  said,  Dicere  recte  nemo  poles f,  nisi 
qui  prudenter  intelligit. 22  The  shame  of  speaking  unskilfully  were 

22  No  one  can  speak  rightly  but  one  who  understands  wisely.  —  CICERO, 
Brutus,  6,  23. 


104  BEN  JOttSQN. 

small,  if  the  tongue  only  thereby  were  disgraced ;  but  as  the 
image  of  a  king,  in  his  seal  ill-represented,  is  not  so  much  a  blem- 
ish to  the  wax,  or  the  signet  that  sealed  it,  as  to  the  prince  it 
representeth ;  so  disordered  speech  is  not  so  much  injury  to 
the  lips  that  give  it  forth,  as  to  the  disproportion  and  inco- 
herence of  things  in  themselves,  so  negligently  expressed.  Neither 
can  his  mind  be  thought  to  be  in  tune,  whose  words  do  jar ;  nor 
his  reason  in  frame,  whose  sentence  is  preposterous ;  nor  his 
elocution  clear  and  perfect,  whose  utterance  breaks  itself  into 
fragments  and  uncertainties.  Were  it  not  a  dishonour  to  a  mighty 
prince,  to  have  the  majesty  of  his  embassage  spoiled  by  a  careless 
ambassador?  and  is  it  not  as  great  an  indignity,  that  an  excellent 
conceit  and  capacity,  by  the  indiligence  of  an  idle  tongue,  should  be 
disgraced  ?  Negligent  speech  doth  not  only  discredit  the  person 
of  the  speaker,  but  it  discrediteth  the  opinion  of  his  reason  and 
judgment ;  it  discrediteth  the  force  and  uniformity  of  the  matter 
and  substance.  If  it  be  so  then  in  words,  which  fly  and  escape 
censure,  and  where  one  good  phrase  begs  pardon  for  many  in- 
congruities and  faults,  how  shall  he  then  be  thought  wise,  whose 
penning  is  thin  and  shallow?  how  shall  you  look  for  wit  from 
him,  whose  leisure  and  head,  assisted  with  the  examination  of  his 
eyes,  yield  you  no  life  or  sharpness  in  his  writing  ?  * 

*  Cf.  Schelling's  edition  of  Ben  Jonson's  Timber  for  notes  on  this  selec- 
tion. 


VI. 

THOMAS    FULLER. 

(1608—1661.) 

THE  HOLY  STATE  AND   THE  PROFANE  STATE. 

THE    HOLY   STATE. 
[Written  about  1640.] 

BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Good  Schoolmaster. 

THERE  is  scarce  any  profession  in  the  commonwealth  more 
necessary,  which  is  so  slightly  performed.  The  reasons  whereof  I 
conceive  to  be  these  :  First,  young  scholars  make  this  calling  their 
refuge  :  yea,  perchance,  before  they  have  taken  any  degree  in  the 
University,  commence  schoolmasters  in  the  country ;  as  if  nothing 
else  were  required  to  set  up  this  profession,  but  only  a  rod  and  a 
ferula.  Secondly,  others,  who  are  able,  use  it  only  as  a  passage  to 
better  preferment ;  to  patch  the  rents  in  their  present  fortune,  till 
they  can  provide  a  new  one,  and  betake  themselves  to  some  more 
gainful  calling.  Thirdly,  they  are  disheartened  from  doing  their 
best,  with  the  miserable  reward  which  in  some  places  they  receive, 
—  being  masters  to  their  children,  and  slaves  to  their  parents. 
Fourthly,  being  grown  rich,  they  grow  negligent ;  and  scorn  to 
touch  the  school,  but  by  the  proxy  of  an  usher.  But  see  how  well 
our  schoolmaster  behaves  himself. 

MAXIM  I. 

His  genius  inclines  him  -with  delight  to  his  profession.  —  Some 
men  had  as  lieve  be  school-boys  as  school-masters,  —  to  be  tied  to 
the  school  as  Cooper's  "  Dictionary "  and  Scapula's  "  Lexicon  " 

105 


106  THOMAS  FULLER. 

are  chained  to  the  desk  therein ;  and,  though  great  scholars,  and 
skilful  in  other  arts,  are  bunglers  in  this.  But  God  of  his  goodness 
hath  fitted  several  men  for  several  callings,  that  the  necessity  of 
church  and  state,  in  all  conditions,  may  be  provided  for.  So  that 
he  who  beholds  the  fabric  thereof  may  say :  "  God  hewed  out  this 
stone,  and  appointed  it  to  lie  in  this  very  place ;  for  it  would  fit 
none  other  so  well  and  here  it  doth  most  excellent."  And  thus 
God  mouldeth  some  for  a  schoolmaster's  life  ;  undertaking  it  with 
desire  and  delight,  and  discharging  it  with  dexterity  and  happy 
success. 

II. 

He  studieth  his  scholars'  natures  as  carefully  as  they  their  books. 
—  And  ranks  their  dispositions  into  several  forms.  And  though  it 
may  seem  difficult  for  him  in  a  great  school  to  descend  to  all  par- 
ticulars, yet  experienced  schoolmasters  may  quickly  make  a  gram- 
mar of  boys'  natures,  and  reduce  them  all  (saving  some  few 
exceptions)  to  these  general  rules  :  — 

1.  Those  that  are  ingenious  and  industrious.  —  The  conjunction 
of  two  such  planets  in  a  youth  presage  much  good  unto  him.     To 
such  a  lad  a  frown  may  be  a  whipping,  and  a  whipping  a  death  ; 
yea,  where  their  master  whips  them  once,  shame  whips  them  all 
the  week  after.     Such  natures  he  useth  with  all  gentleness. 

2.  Those  that  are  ingenious  and  idle. — These  think  with  the 
hare  in  the  fable,  that,  running  with  snails,    (so  they  count   the 
rest  of  their  school- fellows,)  they  shall  come  soon  enough  to  the 
post ;  though  sleeping  a  good  while  before  their  starting.     O  !  a 
good  rod  would  finely  take  them  napping  ! 

3.  Those  that  are  dull  and  diligent.  —  Wines,  —  the  stronger 
they  be,  the  more  lees  they  have  when  they  are  new.     Many  boys 
are  muddy-headed  till  they  be  clarified  with  age  ;  and  such  after- 
wards  prove   the   best.     Bristol   diamonds  are  both  bright,  and 
squared,  and  pointed  by  nature,  and  yet  are  soft  and  worthless ; 
whereas   orient  ones,    in  India,  are  rough  and  rugged  naturally. 
Hard,  nigged,  and  dull  natures  of  youth  acquit  themselves  after- 
wards the  jewels  of  the  country;  and,  therefore,  their  dulness  at 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND    THE  PROFANE   STATE.       107 

first  is  to  be  borne  with,  if  they  be  diligent.  That  schoolmaster 
deserves  to  be  beaten  himself,  who  beats  nature  in  a  boy  for  a 
fault.  And  I  question  whether  all  the  whipping  in  the  world  can 
make  their  parts  which  are  naturally  sluggish,  rise  one  moment 
before  the  hour  [which]  nature  hath  appointed. 

4.  Those  that  are  invincibly  dull  and  negligent  also.  —  Correc- 
tion may  reform  the  latter,  but  not  amend  the  former.  All  the 
whetting  in  the  world  can  never  set  a  razor's  edge  on  that  which 
hath  no  steel  in  it.  Such  boys  he  consigneth  over  to  other 
professions.  Ship-wrights  and  boat-makers  will  choose  those 
crooked  pieces  of  timber  which  other  carpenters  refuse.  Those 
may  make  excellent  merchants  and  mechanics  who  will  not  serve 
for  scholars. 

III. 

He  is  able,  diligent,  and  methodical  in  his  teaching.  —  Not 
leading  them  rather  in  a  circle  than  forwards.  He  minces  his 
precepts,  for  children  to  swallow ;  hanging  clogs  on  the  nimble- 
ness  of  his  own  soul,  that  his  scholars  may  go  along  with  him. 

IV. 

He  is,  and  will  be  known  to  be,  an  absolute  monarch  in  his 
school. — If  cockering1  mothers  proffer  him  money,  to  purchase 
their  sons  an  exemption  from  his  rod  (to  live,  as  it  were,  in  a 
peculiar,  out  of  their  master's  jurisdiction,)  with  disdain  he 
refuseth  it,  and  scorns  the  late  custom  in  some  places  of  com- 
muting whipping  into  money,  and  ransoming  boys  from  the  rod 
at  a  set  price.  If  he  hath  a  stubborn  youth,  correction-proof,  he 
debaseth  not  his  authority  by  contesting  with  him,  but  fairly  (if 
he  can)  puts  him  away  before  his  obstinancy  hath  infected 
others. 

V. 

He  is  moderate  in  inflicting  deserved  correction.  —  Many  a 
schoolmaster  better  answereth  the  name  TraiSorpi/fy?  than  TraiSa- 

1  indulgent. 


108  THOMAS  FULL&&. 

ywyos,2  rather  "tearing  his  scholars'  flesh  with  whipping,  than 
giving  them  good  education."  No  wonder  if  his  scholars  hate 
the  Muses,  being  presented  unto  them  in  the  shapes  of  fiends  and 
furies.  Junius  complains,  de  insolenti  carnificindz  of  his  school- 
master, by  whom  conscindebatur  flagris  septies  aut  octies  in  dies 
singulos*  Yea,  hear  the  lamentable  verses  of  poor  Tusser,  in  his 

own  Life :  — 

"  From  Paul's  I  went, 
To  Eaton  sent, 
To  learn  straightways 
The  Latin  phrase; 
Where  fifty-three 
Stripes  given  to  me 
At  once  I  had. 

"  For  fault  but  small, 
Or  none  at  all, 
It  came  to  pass 
Thus  beat  I  was; 
See,  Udal,5  see 
The  mercy  of  thee 
To  me,  poor  lad  !  " 

Such  an  Orbilius*  mars  more  scholars  than  he  makes.  Their 
tyranny  hath  caused  many  tongues  to  stammer,  which  spake 
plain  by  nature,  and  whose  stuttering  at  first  was  nothing  else  but 
fears  quavering  on  their  speech  at  their  master's  presence ;  and 
whose  mauling  them  about  their  heads  hath  dulled  those  who  in 
quickness  exceeded  their  master. 

VI. 

He  makes  his  school  free  to  him,  who  sues  to  him  IN  FORMA 
PAUPERis.6  —  And,  surely,  learning  is  the  greatest  alms  that  can  be 

2  punisher  than  tutor.  8  of  the  excessive  torture. 

*  He  was  flogged  seven  or  eight  limes  every  day. 

6  Nicholas  Udall,  head  master  of  Eton  College,  1532-43,  and  author  of  our 
first  comedy,  "  Ralph  Roister  Doister." 

*  Cf.  HORACE,  Epist.  II.  I,  90.  6  as  a  poor  boy. 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND   THE  PROFANE   STATE.       109 

given.  But  he  is  a  beast,  who,  because  the  poor  scholar  cannot 
pay  him  his  wages,  pays  the  scholar  in  his  whipping.  Rather  are 
diligent  lads  to  be  encouraged  with  all  excitements  to  learning. 
This  minds  me  of  what  I  have  heard  concerning  Mr.  Bust,  that 
worthy  late  school-master  of  Eaton,  who  would  never  suffer  any 
wandering,  begging  scholar  (such  as  justly  the  statute  hath  ranked 
in  the  fore-front  of  rogues)  to  come  into  his  school,  but  would 
thrust  him  out  with  earnestness,  (however  privately  charitable  unto 
him,)  lest  his  school-boys  should  be  disheartened  from  their 
books,  by  seeing  some  scholars,  after  their  studying  in  the 
University,  preferred  to  beggary. 

VII. 

He  spoils  not  a  good  school,  to  make  thereof  a  bad  College.  — 
Therein  to  teach  his  scholars  logic.  For,  besides  that  logic  may 
have  an  action  of  trespass  against  grammar  for  encroaching  on 
her  liberties,  syllogisms  are  solecisms  taught  in  the  school ;  and 
oftentimes  they  are  forced  afterwards,  in  the  University,  to  un- 
learn the  fumbling  skill  they  had  before. 

VIII. 

Out  of  his  school  he  is  no  whit  pedantical  in  carriage  or  dis- 
course. —  Contenting  himself  to  be  rich  in  Latin,  though  he  doth 
not  jingle  with  it  in  every  company  wherein  he  comes. 

To  conclude  :  let  this,  amongst  other  motives,  make  school- 
masters careful  in  their  place,  that  the  eminences  of  their  scholars 
have  commended  the  memories  of  their  school-masters  to  pos- 
terity, who,  otherwise  in  obscurity,  had  altogether  been  forgotten. 
Who  had  ever  heard  of  R.  Bond,  in  Lancashire,  but  for  the  breed- 
ing of  learned  Ascham  his  scholar  ?  or  of  Hartgrave,  in  Burnley 
school,  in  the  same  country,  but  because  he  was  the  first  [who] 
did  teach  worthy  Dr.  Whitaker.  Nor  do  I  know  the  memory 
of  Mulcaster  for  anything  so  much  as  for  his  scholar,  that  gulf 
of  learning,  Bishop  Andrews.  This  made  the  Athenians,  the 


110  THOMAS  FULLER. 

day  before  the  great  feast  of  Theseus  their  founder,  to  sacrifice 
a  ram  to  the  memory  of  Conidas,  his  school-master,  that  first 
instructed  him* 

BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  XIII. 
Of  Recreations. 

Recreations  is  a  second  creation,  when  weariness  hath  almost 
annihilated  one's  spirits.  It  is  the  breathing  of  the  soul,  which 
otherwise  would  be  stifled  with  continual  business.  We  may 
trespass  in  them,  if  using  such  as  are  forbidden  by  the  —  lawyer, 
as  against  the  statutes — physician,  as  against  health  —  divine,  as 
against  conscience. 

MAXIM  I. 

Be  well  satisfied  in  thy  conscience  of  the  lawfulness  of  the  recre- 
ation thoii  usest.  —  Some  fight  against  cock-fighting,  and  bait  bull- 
and  bear-baiting,  because  man  is  not  to  be  a  common  barrister  to 
set  the  creatures  at  discord  ;  and,  seeing  antipathy  betwixt  creatures 
was  kindled  by  man's  sin,  what  pleasure  can  he  take  to  see  it 
burn?  Others  are  of  the  contrary  opinion,  and  that  Christianity 
gives  us  a  placard7  to  use  these  sports;  and  that  man's  character 
of  dominion  over  the  creatures  enables  him  to  employ  them  as 
well  for  pleasure  as  necessity.  In  these,  as  in  all  other  doubtful 
recreations,  be  well  assured,  first,  of  the  legality  of  them.  He 
that  sins  against  his  conscience,  sins  with  a  witness. 

II. 

Spill  not  the  morning  (the  quintessence  of  the  day  f)  in  recrea- 
tions.—  For  sleep  itself  is  a  recreation.  Add  not,  therefore, 
sauce  to  sauce ;  and  he  cannot  properly  have  any  title  to  be 
refreshed,  who  was  not  first  faint.  Pastime,  like  wine,  is  poison 
in  the  morning.  It  is  then  good  husbandry  to  sow  the  head, 

7  license. 


THE   HOLY  STATE  AND    THE   PROFANE   STATE.       Ill 

which  hath  lain  fallow  all  night,  with  some  serious  work.  Chiefly, 
intrench  not  on  the  Lord's  day  to  use  unlawful  sports ;  this  were 
to  spare  thine  own  flock,  and  to  shear  God's  lamb. 

III. 

Let  thy  recreations  be  ingenious,  and  bear  proportion  with  thine 
age.  —  If  thou  sayest  with  Paul,  "When  I  was  a  child,  I  did  as  a 
child ; "  say  also  with  him,  "  But  when  I  was  a  man,  I  put  away 
childish  things."  Wear  also  the  child's  coat,  if  thou  usest  his 
sports. 

IV. 

Take  heed  of  boisterous  and  over-violent  exercises.  —  Ringing  oft- 
times  hath  made  good  music  on  the  bells,  and  put  men's  bodies  out 
of  tune ;  so  that,  by  over-heating  themselves,  they  have  rung  their 
own  passing-bell. 

V. 

Yet  the  under  sort  of  people  scarce  count  anything  a  sport  which 
is  not  loud  and  violent. — The  Muscovite  women  esteem  none 
loving  husbands  except  they  beat  their  wives.  It  is  no  pastime 
with  country-clowns  that  cracks  not  pates,  breaks  not  shins,  bruises 
not  limbs,  tumbles  and  tosses  not  all  the  body.  They  think 
themselves  not  warm  in  their  gears,  till  they  are  all  on  fire  ;  and 
count  it  but  dry  sport,  till  they  swim  in  their  own  sweat.  Yet  I 
conceive  the  physician's  rule  in  exercises,  Ad  ruborem,  but  non 
ad sudorem*  is  too  scant  measure. 

VI. 

Refresh  that  part  of  thyself  which  is  most  wearied.  —  If  thy  life 
be  sedentary,  exercise  thy  body ;  if  stirring  and  active,  recreate 
thy  mind.  But  take  heed  of  cozening  thy  mind,  in  setting  it  to 
do  a  double  task,  under  pretence  of  giving  it  a  play-day,  as  in  the 
labyrinth  of  chess,  and  other  tedious  and  studious  games. 

8  to  a  glow,  but  not  to  a  sweat. 


112  THOMAS  FULLER. 

VII. 

Yet  recreations  distasteful  to  some  dispositions  relish  best  to 
others.  —  Fishing  with  an  angle  is,  to  some,  rather  a  torture  than 
a  pleasure,  —  to  stand  an  hour  as  mute  as  the  fish  they  mean  to 
take ;  yet  herewithal  Dr.  Whitaker  was  much  delighted.  When 
some  nobleman  had  gotten  William  Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh,  and 
Treasurer  of  England,  to  ride  with  them  a-hunting,  and  the  sport 
began  to  be  cold,  "What  call  you  this?"  said  the  Treasurer. 
"  O  !  now,"  said  they,  "  the  dogs  are  at  a  fault."  "  Yea,"  quoth 
the  Treasurer,  "  take  me  again  in  such  a  fault,  and  I  will  give  you 
leave  to  punish  me  !  "  Thus,  as  soon  may  the  same  meat  please 
all  palates,  as  the  same  sport  suit  with  all  dispositions. 

VIII. 

Running,  leaping,  and  dancing,  the  descants  on  the  plain  song  of 
walking,  are  all  excellent  exercises.  —  And  yet  those  are  the  best 
recreations  which,  beside  refreshing,  enable,  at  least  dispose,  men 
to  some  other  good  ends.  Bowling  teaches  men's  hands  and 
eyes  mathematics  and  the  rules  of  proportion.  Swimming  hath 
saved  many  a  man's  life,  when  himself  hath  been  both  the  wares 
and  the  ship.  Tilting  and  fencing  is  war  without  anger;  and 
manly  sports  are  the  grammar  of  military  performance. 

IX. 

But,  above  all,  shooting  is  a  noble  recreation,  and  a  half-liberal 
art. —  A  rich  man  told  a  poor  man,  that  he  walked  to  get  a  stom- 
ach for  his  meat.  "  And  I,"  said  the  poor  man,  "  walk  to  get 
meat  for  my  stomach."  Now,  shooting  would  have  fitted  both 
their  turns ;  it  provides  food  when  men  are  hungry,  and  helps 
digestion  when  they  are  full.  King  Edward  VI,  though  he  drew 
no  strong  bow,  shot  very  well ;  and  when  once  John  Dudley,  duke 
of  Northumberland,  commended  him  for  hitting  the  mark :  "You 
shot  better,"  quoth  the  king,  "  when  you  shot  off  my  good  uncle 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND   THE  PROFANE   STATE.       113 

Protector's  head."  But  our  age  sees  his  successor9  exceeding 
him  in  that  art ;  whose  eye,  like  his  judgment,  is  clear  and  quick 
to  discover  the  mark,  and  his  hands  as  just  in  shooting  as  in  deal- 
ing aright. 

X. 

Some  sports,  being  granted  to  be  lawful,  more  propend  to  be  ill- 
than  well-used,  —  Such  I  count  stage-plays,  when  made  always  the 
actors'  work,  and  often  the  spectators'  recreation.  Zeuxis,  the 
curious  picturer,  painted  a  boy  holding  a  dish  full  of  grapes  in  his 
hand,  done  so  lively,  that  the  birds,  being  deceived,  flew  to  pick 
the  grapes.  But  Zeuxis,  in  an  ingenious  choler,  was  angry  with 
his  own  workmanship.  "Had  I,"  said  he,  "made  the  boy  as 
lively  as  the  grapes,  the  birds  would  have  been  afraid  to  touch 
them."  Thus  two  things  are  set  forth  to  us  in  stage-plays  :  some 
grave  sentences,  prudent  counsels,  and  punishment  of  vicious 
examples ;  and,  with  these,  desperate  oaths,  lustful  talk,  and  riot- 
ous acts  are  so  personated  to  the  life,  that  wantons  are  tickled 
with  delight,  and  feed  their  palates  upon  them.  It  seems,  the 
goodness  is  not  portrayed  out  with  equal  accents  of  liveliness,  as 
the  wicked  things  are  :  otherwise,  men  would  be  deterred  from 
vicious  courses  with  seeing  the  woful  success  which  follows  them. 
But  the  main  is,  wanton  speeches  on  stages  are  the  devil's  ordi- 
nance to  beget  badness ;  but  I  question  whether  the  pious 
speeches  spoken  there  be  God's  ordinance  to  increase  goodness, 
as  wanting  both  his  institution  and  benediction. 

XI. 

Choke  not  thy  soul  with  immoderate  pouring-in  the  cordial  of 
pleasure.  —  The  creation  lasted  but  six  days  of  the  first  week. 
Profane  they  whose  recreation  lasts  seven  days  every  week. 
Rather  abridge  thyself  of  thy  lawful  liberty  herein ;  it  being  a  wary 
rule  which  St.  Gregory  gives  us  :  Solus  in  illicitis  non  cadit,  qui  se 

9  Charles  I. 


114  THOMAS  FULLER. 

aliquando  et  a  licitis  caute  restringit ; 10  and  then  recreations  shall 
both  strengthen  labour,  and  sweeten  rest;  and  we  may  expect 
God's  blessing  and  protection  on  us  in  following  them,  as  well  as 
in  doing  our  work.  For  he  that  saith  grace  for  his  meat,  in  it 
prays  also  to  God  to  bless  the  sauce  unto  him.  As  for  those  that 
will  not  take  lawful  pleasure,  I  am  afraid  they  will  take  unlawful 
pleasure,  and,  by  lacing  themselves  too  hard,  grow  awry  on  one 
side. 

BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Of  Books. 

Solomon  saith  truly,  "  Of  making  many  books,  there  is  no  end ; " 
so  insatiable  is  the  thirst  of  men  therein :  as  also  endless  is  the 
desire  of  many  in  buying  and  reading  them.  But  we  come  to  our 
rules :  — 

MAXIM  I. 

It  is  a  vanity  to  persuade  the  world  one  hath  much  learning, 
by  getting  a  great  library.  —  As  soon  shall  I  believe  every  one  is 
valiant  that  hath  a  well- furnished  armory.  I  guess  good  house- 
keeping by  the  smoking,  not  the  number  of  the  tunnels,  as  know- 
ing that  many  of  them  (built  merely  for  uniformity)  are  without 
chimnies,  and  more  without  fires.  Once  a  dunce,  void  of  learn- 
ing but  full  of  books,  flouted  a  library-less  scholar  with  these  words  : 
Salve,  Doctor  sine  libris  /u  But  the  next  day,  the  scholar  coming 
into  the  jeerer's  study  crowded  with  books,  Salvete,  libri,  saith 
he,  sine  Doc  tore  ./ia 

II. 

Few  books,  well  selected,  are  best. — Yet,  as  a  certain  fool 
bought  all  the  pictures  that  came  out,  because  he  might  have  his 

10  He  alone  does  not  fall  in  unlawful  pleasures  who  sometimes  restrains  him- 
self carefully  even  from  lawful  ones. 

11  Good-day,  Doctor  without  books !        12  Good-day,  books  without  a  Doctor! 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND    THE  PROFANE  STATE.       115 

choice ;  such  is  the  vain  humour  of  many  men  in  gathering  of 
books.  Yet,  when  they  have  done  all,  they  miss  their  end ;  it 
being  in  the  editions  of  authors  as  in  the  fashion  of  clothes, — 
when  a  man  thinks  he  hath  gotten  the  latest  and  newest,  presently 
another  newer  comes  out. 

III. 

Some  books  are  only  cursorily  to  be  tasted  of.  —  Namely,  first, 
voluminous  books,  the  task  of  a  man's  life  to  read  them  over. 
Secondly,  auxiliary  books,  only  to  be  repaired  to  on  occasion. 
Thirdly,  such  as  are  mere  pieces  of  formality,  so  that  if  you  look 
on  them  you  look  through  them  :  and  he  that  peeps  through  the 
casement  of  the  index,  sees  as  much  as  if  he  were  in  the  house. 
But  the  laziness  of  those  cannot  be  excused  who  perfunctorily  pass 
over  authors  of  consequence,  and  only  trade  in  their  tables  and 
contents.  These,  like  city-cheaters,  having  gotten  the  names  of 
all  country-gentlemen,  make  silly  people  believe  they  have  long 
lived  in  those  places  where  they  never  were,  and  flourish  with 
skill  in  those  authors  they  never  seriously  studied. 

IV. 

The  genius  of  the  author  is  commonly  discovered  in  the  Ded- 
icatory Epistle.  —  Many  place  the  purest  grain  in  the  mouth  of 
the  sack,  for  chapmen  to  handle  or  buy :  and  from  the  dedication 
one  may  probably  guess  at  the  work,  saving  some  rare  and  peculiar 
exceptions.  Thus,  when  once  a  gentleman  admired  how  so  pithy, 
learned,  and  witty  a  dedication  was  matched  to  a  flat,  dull,  foolish 
book ;  "  In  truth,"  said  another,  "  they  will  be  well-matched  to- 
gether, for  I  profess  they  be  nothing  akin." 

V. 

Proportion  an  hour's  meditation  to  an  hour's  reading  of  a 
staple  author.  —  This  makes  a  man  master  of  his  learning,  and  dis- 
spirits  the  book  into  the  scholar.  The  king  of  Sweden  never  filed 


116  THOMAS  FULLER. 

his  men  above  six  deep  in  one  company,  because  he  would  not 
have  them  lie  in  useless  clusters  in  his  army,  but  so  that  every 
particular  soldier  might  be  drawn  out  into  service.  Books  that 
stand  thin  on  the  shelves,  yet  so  as  the  owner  of  them  can  bring 
forth  every  one  of  them  into  use,  are  better  than  far  greater 
libraries. 

VI. 

Learning  hath  gained  most  by  those  books  by  which  the  printers 
have  lost.  —  Arias  Montanus,  in  printing  the  Hebrew  Bible  (com- 
monly called  "  the  Bible  of  the  King  of  Spain,"  )  much  wasted 
himself,  and  was  accused  in  the  Court  of  Rome  for  his  good  deed, 
and  being  cited  thither,  Pro  tantorum  laborum  pramio  vix  veniam 
impetravit™  Likewise  Christopher  Plantin,  by  printing  of  his 
curious  interlineary  Bible  in  Antwerp,  through  the  unseasonable 
exactions  of  the  kings'  officers,  sunk  and  almost  ruined  his  estate. 
And  our  worthy  English  knight,  who  set  forth  the  golden-mouthed 
Father  in  a  silver  print,  was  a  loser  by  it.14 

VII. 

Whereas  foolish  pamphlets  prove  most  beneficial  to  the  print- 
ers.—  When  a  French  printer  complained  that  he  was  utterly 
undone  by  printing  a  solid,  serious  book  of  Rabelais  concerning 
physic,  Rabelais,  to  make  him  recompense,  made  that  his  jesting 
scurrilous  work,  which  repaired  the  printers'  loss  with  advantage. 
Such  books  the  world  swarms  too  much  with.  When  one  had  set 
out  a  witless  pamphlet,  writing  Finis  at  the  end  thereof,  another 
wittily  wrote  beneath  it,  — 

"  Nay,  there  thou  liest,  my  friend, 

In  writing  foolish  books  there  is  no  end" 

18  Scarcely  obtained  pardon,  instead  of  a  reward  for  so  great  labors. 

—  THUANUS. 

14  Sir  Henry  Savile's  edition  of  "The  Works  of  St.  Chrysostom  "  (1613), 
said  to  have  cost  upwards  of  .£8000.  —  NICHOLS. 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND    THE  PROFANE   STATE.       117 

And,  surely,  such  scurrilous,  scandalous  papers  do  more  than  con- 
ceivable mischief.  First,  their  lusciousness  puts  many  palates  out 
of  taste,  that  they  can  never  after  relish  any  solid  and  wholesome 
writers.  Secondly,  they  cast  dirt  on  the  faces  of  many  innocent 
persons,  which,  dried  on  by  continuance  of  time,  can  never  after 
be  washed  off.  Thirdly,  the  pamphlets  of  this  age  may  pass  for 
records  with  the  next,  because  publicly  uncontrolled  ;  and  what 
we  laugh  at,  our  children  may  believe.  Fourthly,  grant  the 
things  true  they  jeer  at,  yet  this  music  is  unlawful  in  any  Christian 
church,  —  to  play  upon  the  sins  and  miseries  of  others  ;  the  fitter 
object  of  the  elegies,  than  the  satires,  of  all  truly  religious. 

But  what  do  I,  speaking  against  multiplicity  of  books  in  this 
age,  who  trespass  in  this  nature  myself?  What  was  a  learned 
man's  compliment,  may  serve  for  my  confession  and  conclusion  : 
Multi  mei  similes  hoc  morbo  laborant,  ut  cum  scribere  nesciant, 
tamen  a  scribendo  temperare  non  possint™ 


BOOK  IV.      CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Life  of  Lady  Jane   Grey. 

Jane  Grey,  eldest  daughter  of  Henry  Grey,  marquess  of  Dorset, 
and  duke  of  Suffolk,  by  Frances  Brandon,  eldest  daughter  of 
Charles  Brandon,  duke  of  Suffolk,  and  Mary  his  wife,  youngest 
daughter  to  king  Henry  VII,  was  by  her  parents  bred,  according  to 
her  high  birth,  in  religion  and  learning.  They  were  no  whit  indul- 
gent to  her  in  her  childhood,  but  extremely  severe,  more  than 
needed  to  so  sweet  a  temper ;  for  what  need  iron  instruments  to 
bow  wax? 

But  as  the  sharpest  Winters,  correcting  the  rankness  of  the. 
earth,  cause  the  more  healthful  and  fruitful  Summers;  so  the 
harshness  of  her  breeding  compacted  her  soul  to  the  greater 

15  Many  like  myself  suffer  from  this  disease,  namely  that,  although  they  do 
not  knmo  how  to  write,  yet  they  cannot  refrain  from  writing.  —  ERASMUS. 


118  THOMAS  FULLER. 

patience  and  piety ;  so  that  afterwards  she  proved  the  mirror  of 
her  age,  and  attained  to  be  an  excellent  scholar,  through  the 
teaching  of  Mr.  Aylmer  her  master. 

Once  Mr.  Roger  Ascham,  coming  to  wait  on  her  at  Broadgates 
in  Leicestershire,  found  her  in  her  chamber  reading  Phiedon- 
PLATONis16  in  Greek  with  as  much  delight  as  some  gentleman 
would  have  read  a  merry  tale  in  Boccace,  whilst  the  duke  her 
father,  with  the  duchess,  and  all  their  household,  were  hunting  in 
the  park.  He  asked  of  her,  how  she  could  lose  such  pastime ; 
who,  smiling,  answered  :  "  I  wish 17  all  the  sport  in  the  park  is  but 
the  shadow  of  what  pleasure  I  find  in  this  book  !  "  adding,  more- 
over, that  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  God  ever  gave  her,  was 
in  sending  her  sharp  parents,  and  a  gentle  school-master,  which 
made  her  take  delight  in  nothing  so  much  as  in  her  studies. 

About  this  time  John  Dudley,  duke  of  Northumberland,  pro- 
jected for  the  English  crown.  But  being  too  low  to  reach  it  in 
his  own  person,  (having  no  advantage  of  royal  birth,)  a  match  was 
made  betwixt  Guilford,  his  fourth  son,  and  this  lady  Jane ;  the 
duke  hoping  so  to  reign  in  his  daughter-in-law,  on  whom  king 
Edward  VI,  by  will,  (passing  by  his  own  sisters,)  had  entailed  the 
crown  ;  and,  not  long  after,  that  godly  king,  who  had  some  defects, 
but  few  faults,  (and  those  rather  in  his  age  than  person,)  came  to 
his  grave ;  it  being  uncertain  whether  he  went,  or  was  sent, 
thither.  If  the  latter  be  true,  "  the  crying  of  this  saint  under  the 
altar,"  beneath  which  he  was  buried  in  king  Henry's  chapel, 
(without  any  other  monument  than  that  of  his  own  virtues,)  hath 
been  heard  long  since,  for  avenging  his  blood. 

Presently  after,  (1553,)  lady  Jane  was  proclaimed  queen  of 
England.  She  lifted  not  up  her  least  finger  to  put  the  diadem  on 
herself;  but  was  only  contented  to  sit  still,  whilst  others  endeav- 
oured to  crown  her ;  or  rather,  was  so  far  from  biting  at  the  bait 
of  sovereignty,  that  unwillingly  she  opened  her  mouth  to  receive  it. 

16  The  Phaedo  of  Plato. 

17  ASCHAM  ("  Scholemaster,"  Arber's  Reprint)  has  I  wis,  i.e.  surely. 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND    THE  PROFANE   STATE.       119 

Then  was  the  duke  of  Northumberland  made  general  of  an 
army,  and  sent  into  Suffolk  to  suppress  the  lady  Mary,  who  there 
gathered  men  to  claim  the  crown.  This  duke  was  appointed, 
out  of  the  policy  of  his  friend-seeming  enemies,  for  that  employ- 
ment. For  those  who  before  could  not  endure  the  scorching 
heat  of  his  displeasure  at  the  council- table,  durst  afterwards 
oppose  him,  having  gotten  the  screen  of  London-walls  betwixt 
him  and  them.  They  also  stinted  his  journeys  every  day,  (thereby 
appointing  the  steps  by  which  he  was  to  go  down  to  his  own 
grave,)  that  he  should  march  on  very  slowly,  which  caused  his 
confusion.  For,  lingering  doth  tire  out  treacherous  designs,  which 
are  to  be  done  all  on  a  sudden,  and  gives  breath  to  loyalty  to 
recover  itself. 

His  army,  like  a  sheep,  left  part  of  his  fleece  on  every  bush  it 
came  by ;  at  every  stage  and  corner  some  conveying  themselves 
from  him,  till  his  soldiers  were  washed  away  before  any  storm  of 
war  fell  upon  them.  Only  some  few,  who  were  chained  to  the 
duke  by  their  particular  engagements,  and  some  great  persons, 
hopeless  to  conceal  themselves,  as  being  too  big  for  a  cover,  stuck 
fast  unto  him.  Thus  those  enterprises  need  a  strong  hand,  which 
are  thrown  against  the  bias  of  people's  hearts  and  consciences. 
And,  not  long  after,  the  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  Protestant  /  gentry 
(loyalty  always  lodgeth  in  the  same  breast  with  true  religion  !) 
proclaimed  and  set  up  queen  Mary,  who  got  the  crown  by  "  Our 
Father,"  and  held  it  by  Pater  noster.™ 

Then  was  the  late  queen,  now  lady  Jane  Grey,  brought  from  a 
queen  to  a  prisoner,  and  committed  to  the  Tower.  She  made 
misery  itself  amiable  by  her  pious  and  patient  behaviour ;  adversity, 
her  night-clothes,  becoming  her  as  well  as  her  day-dressing,  by 
reason  of  her  pious  deportment. 

During  her  imprisonment,  many  moved  her  to  alter  her  religion, 
and  especially  Mr.  Feckenham,  sent  unto  her  by  queen  Mary. 

18  "  Obtained  the  crown  by  the  Protestants  and  held  it  by  the  Papists." 

—  NICHOLS. 


120  THOMAS  FULLER, 

But  how  wisely  and  religiously  she  answered  him,  I  refer  the 
reader  to  Mr.  Fox,  where  it  is  largely  recorded.19 

And  because  I  have  mentioned  that  book,  wherein  this  lady's 
virtues  are  so  highly  commended,  I  am  not  ignorant  that,  of  late, 
great  disgrace  hath  been  thrown  on  that  author  and  his  worthy 
work,  as  being  guilty  of  much  falsehood ;  chiefly,  because  some- 
times he  makes  Popish  doctors,  well  known  to  be  rich  in  learning, 
to  reason  very  poorly ;  and  the  best  fencers  of  their  schools, 
worsted  and  put  out  of  their  play  by  some  country  poor  Protes- 
tants. But  let  the  cavillers  hereat  know,  that  it  is  a  great  matter 
to  have  the  odds  of  the  weapon  (God's  word)  on  their  side ;  — 
not  to  say  anything  of  supernatural  assistance  given  them.  Sure, 
for  the  main,  his  book  is  a  worthy  work,  (wherein  the  reader  may 
rather  leave  than  lack,)  and  seems  to  me,  like  Etna,  always 
burning,  whilst  the  smoke  hath  almost  put  out  the  eyes  of  the 
adverse  party;  and  these  Fox's  "fire-brands"  have  brought  much 
annoyance  to  the  Romish  "  Philistines."  But  it  were  a  miracle, 
if,  in  so  voluminous  a  work,  there  were  nothing  to  be  justly 
reproved ;  so  great  a  pomegranate,  not  having  any  rotten  kernel, 
must  only  grow  in  Paradise.  And  though,  perchance,  he  held  the 
beam  at  the  best  advantage  for  the  Protestant  party  to  weigh 
down,  yet,  generally,  he  is  a  true  writer,  and  never  wilfully  deceiv- 
eth,  though  he  may  sometimes  be  unwillingly  deceived. 

To  return  to  the  lady  Jane  :  Though  queen  Mary,  of  her  own 
disposition,  was  inclined  finally  to  pardon  her,  yet  necessity  of 
State  was  such,  as  she  must  be  put  to  death.  .  .  .  On  Tower 
Hill  (Feb.  i2th,  1553)  she  most  patiently,  Christianly,  and  con- 
stantly yielded  to  God  her  soul,  which,  by  a  bad  way,  went  to  the 
best  end.  On  whom  the  foresaid  author  (whence  the  rest  of  her 
life  may  be  supplied)  bestows  these  verses  :  — 

Nescio  tu  quibus  es,  lector,  lecturus  ocellis  : 
Hoc  scio,  quod  siccis  scribere  non  potui. 

"  What  eyes  thou  read 'st with,  reader,  know  I  not: 
Mine  were  not  dry,  when  I  this  story  wrote." 

19  Fox's  "  Acts  and  Monuments.  " 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND   THE  PROFANE   STATE.       121 

She  had  the  innocency  of  childhood,  the  beauty  of  youth,  the 
solidity  of  middle  —  the  gravity  of  old  —  age,  and  all  at  eighteen  ; 
the  birth  of  a  princess,  the  learning  of  a  clerk,  the  life  of  a  saint, 
yet  the  death  of  a  malefactor,  for  her  parents'  offences.  I  confess, 
I  never  read  of  any  canonized  saint  of  her  name,  —  a  thing 
whereof  some  Papists  are  so  scrupulous,  that  they  count  it  an 
unclean  and  unhallowed  thing  to  be  of  a  name  whereof  never 
any  saint  was  :  which  made  that  great  Jesuit,  Arthur  Faunt,  as 
his  kinsman  tells  us,  change  his  Christian  name  to  Lawrence.  But 
let  this  worthy  lady  pass  for  a  saint ;  and  let  all  great  ladies,  who 
bear  her  name,  imitate  her  virtues ;  to  whom  I  wish  her  inward 
holiness,  but  far  more  outward  happiness. 

Yet,  lest  goodness  should  be  discouraged  by  this  lady's  infelicity, 
we  will  produce  another  example,  which  shall  be  of  a  fortunate 
virtue. 

BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Life  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

We  intermeddle  not  with  her  description  as  she  was  a  sovereign 
prince,  too  high  for  our  pen,  and  performed  by  others  already, 
though  not  by  any  done  so  fully  but  that  still  room  is  left  for  the 
endeavours  of  posterity  to  add  thereunto.  We  consider  her  only 
as  she  was  a  worthy  lady,  her  private  virtues  rendering  her  to  the 
imitation,  and  her  public  to  the  admiration  of  all. 

Her  royal  birth  by  her  father's  side  doth  comparatively  make 
her  mother-descent  seem  low,  which  otherwise,  considered  in  itself, 
was  very  noble  and  honourable.  As  for  the  bundle  of  scandalous 
aspersions  by  some  cast  on  her  birth,  they  are  best  to  be  buried 
without  once  opening  of  them.  For  as  the  basest  rascal  will  pre- 
sume to  miscall  the  best  lord,  when  far  enough  out  of  his  hearing ; 
so  slanderous  tongues  think  they  may  run  riot  in  railing  on  any, 
when  once  got  out  of  the  distance  of  time,  and  reach  of  confu- 
tation. 


122  THOMAS  FULLER. 

But  majesty,  which  dieth  not,  will  not  suffer  itself  to  be  so 
abused,  seeing  the  best  assurance  which  living  princes  have  that 
their  memories  shall  be  honourably  continued,  is  founded  (next 
to  their  own  deserts)  in  the  maintaining  of  the  unstained  reputa- 
tion of  their  predecessors.  Yea,  Divine  Justice  seems  herein  to  be 
a  compurgator  of  the  parents  of  queen  Elizabeth ;  in  that  Nich- 
olas Sanders,  a  Popish  priest,  the  first  raiser  of  these  wicked 
reports,  was  accidentally  famished  as  he  roved  up  and  down  in 
Ireland ;  either  because  it  was  just  he  should  be  starved,  that 
formerly  surfeited  with  lying ;  or  because  that  island,  out  of  a  nat- 
ural antipathy  against  poisonous  creatures,  would  not  lend  life  to 
so  venomous  a  slanderer. 

Under  the  reign  of  her  father,  and  brother  king  Edward  VI, 
(who  commonly  called  her  his  "  sister  Temperance,")  she  lived 
in  a  princely  fashion.  But  the  case  was  altered  with  her,  when 
her  sister  Mary  came  to  the  crown,  who  ever  looked  upon  her 
with  a  jealous  eye  and  frowning  face ;  chiefly,  because  of  the 
difference  between  them  in  religion.  For  though  queen  Mary 
is  said  of  herself  not  so  much  to  have  barked,  yet  she  had  under 
her  those  who  did  more  than  bite ;  and  rather  her  religion,  than 
disposition,  was  guilty  in  countenancing  their  cruelty  by  her 
authority. 

This  antipathy  against  her  sister  Elizabeth  was  increased  with 
the  remembrance  how  Catherine  dowager,  queen  Mary's  mother, 
was  justled  out  of  the  bed  of  Henry  VIII  by  Anna  Boleyn, 
mother  to  queen  Elizabeth;  so  that  these  two  sisters  were  born, 
as  I  may  say,  not  only  in  several,  but  opposite  horizons ;  so  that 
the  elevation  and  bright  appearing  of  the  one  inferred  the  neces- 
sary obscurity  and  depression  of  the  other ;  and  still  queen  Mary 
was  troubled  with  this  fit  of  the  mother,  which  incensed  her 
against  this  her  half-sister. 

To  which  two  grand  causes  of  opposition,  this  third  may  also  be 
added,  because  not  so  generally  known,  though  in  itself  of  lesser 
consequence :  Queen  Mary  had  released  Edward  Courtenay, 
earl  of  Devonshire,  out  of  the  Tower,  where  long  he  had  been 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND    THE  PROFANE  STATE.       123 

detained  prisoner ;  a  gentleman  of  a  beautiful  body,  sweet  nature, 
and  royal  descent ;  intending  him,  as  it  was  generally  conceived, 
to  be  a  husband  for  herself.  For  when  the  said  earl  petitioned 
the  queen  for  leave  to  travel,  she  advised  him  rather  to  marry, 
insuring  him  that  no  lady  in  the  land,  how  high  soever,  would 
refuse  him  for  a  husband ;  and,  urging  him  to  make  his  choice 
where  he  pleased,  she  pointed  herself  out  unto  him  as  plainly  as 
might  stand  with  the  modesty  of  a  maid  and  majesty  of  a  queen. 
Hereupon  the  young  earl  —  whether  because  that  his  long  durance 
had  some  influence  on  his  brain,  or  that  naturally  his  face  was 
better  than  his  head,  or  out  of  some  private  fancy  and  affection  to 
the  lady  Elizabeth,  or  out  of  loyal  bashfulness,  not  presuming  to 
climb  higher,  but  expecting  to  be  called  up  —  is  said  to  have 
requested  the  queen  for  leave  to  marry  her  sister  the  lady  Eliz- 
abeth, unhappy  that  his  choice  either  went  so  high  or  no  higher. 
For  who  could  have  spoken  worse  treason  against  Mary,  (though 
not  against  the  queen,)  than  to  prefer  her  sister  before  her? 
And  she,  innocent  lady,  did  afterwards  dearly  pay  the  score  of 
this  earl's  indiscretion.  For  these  reasons,  lady  Elizabeth  was 
closely  kept,  and  narrowly  sifted,  all  her  sister's  reign,  sir  [Henry] 
Bedingfield,  her  keeper,  using  more  severity  towards  her  than  his 
place  required,  yea,  more  than  a  good  man  should  —  or  a  wise 
man  would  —  have  done.  No  doubt,  the  least  tripping  of  her  foot 
should  have  cost  her  the  losing  of  her  head,  if  they  could  have 
caught  her  to  be  privy  to  any  conspiracies.  This  lady  as  well 
deserved  the  title  of  "  Elizabeth  the  Confessor,"  as  ever  Edward 
her  ancient  predecessor  did.  Mr.  Ascham  was  a  good  school- 
master to  her,  but  affliction  was  a  better ;  so  that  it  is  hard  to 
say,  whether  she  was  more  happy  in  having  a  crown  so  soon,  or  in 
having  it  no  sooner,  till  affliction  had  first  laid  in  her  a  low  —  and 
therefore  a  sure  —  foundation  of  humility,  for  highness  to  be  after- 
wards built  thereupon. 

We  bring  her  now  from  the  cross  to  the  crown ;  and  come  we 
now  to  describe  the  rare  endowments  of  her  mind  ;  when,  behold, 
her  virtues  almost  stifle  my  pen,  they  crowd  in  so  fast  upon  it. 


124  THOMAS  FULLER. 

She  was  an  excellent  scholar,  understanding  the  Greek,  and  per- 
fectly speaking  the  Latin :  witness  her  extempore  speech,  in 
answer  to  the  Polish  ambassador,  and  another  at  Cambridge,  Et 
si  fceminilis  iste  meus  pudor, 21  (for  so  it  began,)  elegantly  making 
the  word  fcem inilis :  and  well  might  she  mint  one  new  word,  who 
did  refine  so  much  new  gold  and  silver.  Good  skill  she  had 
in  the  French  and  Italian,  using  interpreters  not  for  need,  but 
state.  She  was  a  good  poet  in  English,  and  fluently  made  verses. 
In  her  time  of  persecution,  when  a  Popish  priest  pressed  her  very 
hardly  to  declare  her  opinion  concerning  the  presence  of  Christ  in 
the  sacrament,  she  truly  and  warily  presented  her  judgment  in 

these  verses :  — 

"  'Twas  God  the  Word  that  spake  it, 

He  took  the  bread  and  brake  it; 
And  what  the  Word  did  make  it, 
That  I  believe,  and  take  it." 

And  though,  perchance,  some  may  say,  "  This  was  but  the  best 
of  shifts,  and  the  worst  of  answers,  because  the  distinct  manner 
of  the  presence  must  be  believed ; "  yet  none  can  deny  it  to  have 
been  a  wise  return  to  an  adversary,  who  lay  at  wait  for  all  advan- 
tages. Nor  was  her  poetic  vein  less  happy  in  Latin. 

When,  a  little  before  the  Spanish  invasion  in  eighty-eight,  [1588,] 
the  Spanish  ambassador,  after  a  larger  representation  of  his  mas- 
ter's demands,  had  summed  up  the  effect  thereof  in  a  tetrastich, 
she  instantly  in  one  verse  rejoined  her  answer.  We  will  presume 
to  English  both,  though  confessing  the  Latin  loseth  lustre  by  the 
translation. 

Te  veto  ne  pergas  bello  defender e  Belgas  : 
Quce  Dracus  eripuit  nunc  restituanttir  oportet  : 
Quas  pater  ever  tit  jubeo  te  condere  cellas  ; 
Relligio  Papce  fac  restittiatur  ad  unguent. 

"These  to  you  are  our  commands: 
Send  no  help  to  th'  Netherlands : 
Of  the  treasure  took  by  Drake, 
Restitution  you  must  make : 

20  And  if  that  womanly  modesty  of  mine. 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND  THE  PROFANE   STATE.       125 

And  those  abbeys  build  anew, 
Which  your  father  overthrew : 
If  for  any  peace  you  hope, 
In  all  points  restore  the  Pope." 

The  Queen's  extempore  return  :  — 

Ad  Griccas,  bone  rex,  fient  mandata,  Calendas?^ 

"  Worthy  king,  know,  this  your  will 
At  latter  Lammas  we'll  fulfil." 

Her  piety  to  God  was  exemplary;  none  more  constant  or 
devout  in  private  prayers ;  very  attentive  also  at  sermons,  wherein 
she  was  better  affected  with  soundness  of  matter,  than  quaintness 
of  expression.  She  could  not  well  digest  the  affected  over- 
elegancy  of  such  as  prayed  for  her  by  the  title  of  "  Defendress  of 
the  Faith,"  and  not  the  "  Defender  "  ;  it  being  no  false  construc- 
tion, to  apply  a  masculine  word  to  so  heroic  a  spirit. 

She  was  very  devout  in  returning  thanks  to  God  for  her  constant 
and  continual  preservations ;  for  one  traitor's  stab  was  scarce  put 
by,  before  another  took  aim  at  her.  But  as  if  the  poisons  of 
treason,  by  custom,  were  turned  natural  unto  her,  by  God's  pro- 
tection they  did  her  no  harm.  In  any  design  of  consequence, 
she  loved  to  be  long  and  well  advised  ;  but  where  her  resolutions 
once  seized,  she  would  never  let  go  her  hold,  according  to  her 
motto,  Semper  eadem?*  By  her  temperance  she  improved  that 
stock  of  health  which  nature  bestowed  on  her,  using  little  wine 
and  less  physic.  Her  continence  from  pleasure  was  admirable ; 
and  she  the  paragon  of  spotless  chastity,  whatever  some  Popish 
priests  (who  count  all  virginity  hid  under  a  nun's  veil)  have  feigned 
to  the  contrary.  The  best  is,  their  words  are  no  slander  whose 
words  are  all  slander ;  so  given  to  railing  that  they  must  be  dumb 
if  they  do  not  blaspheme  magistrates.  One  Jesuit23  made  this 

21  Your  commands,  good  king,  -will  be  fulfilled  at  the  Greek  kalends,  i.e. 
never. 

22  Always  the  same.  K  Edmond  Campian. 


126  THOMAS  FULLER. 

false  anagram  on  her  name,  Elizabeth,  JESABEL;  false  both  in  matter 
and  manner.  For,  allow  it  the  abatement  of  H,  (as  anagrams 
must  sue  in  chancery  for  moderate  favour,)  yet  was  it  both  une- 
qual and  ominous  that  T,  a  solid  letter,  should  be  omitted,  —  the 
presage  of  the  gallows  whereon  this  anagrammatist  was  afterwards 
justly  executed. 

Yea,  let  the  testimony  of  Pope  Sixtus  V.  himself  be  believed, 
who  professed  that,  amongst  all  the  princes  in  Christendom,  he 
found  but  two  who  were  worthy  to  bear  command,  had  they  not 
been  stained  with  heresy;  namely,  Henry  IV,  king  of  France, 
and  Elizabeth,  queen  of  England.  And  we  may  presume  that  the 
Pope,  if  commending  his  enemy,  is  therein  infallible.  We  come 
to  her  death,  the  discourse  whereof  was  more  welcome  to  her  from 
the  mouth  of  her  private  confessor  than  from  a  public  preacher ; 
and  she  loved  rather  to  tell  herself,  than  to  be  told,  of  her  mor- 
tality ;  because  the  open  mention  thereof  made  (as  she  conceived) 
her  subjects  divide  their  loyalty  betwixt  the  present  and  the  future 
prince.  We  need  look  into  no  other  cause  of  her  sickness  than 
old  age,  being  seventy  years  old,  (David's  age,)  to  which  no  king 
of  England  since  the  Conquest  did  attain.  Her  weakness  was 
increased  by  her  removal  from  London  to  Richmond  in  a  cold 
winter  day,  sharp  enough  to  pierce  through  those  who  were  armed 
with  health  and  youth.  Also  melancholy  (the  worst  natural  para- 
site, whosoever  feeds  him  shall  never  be  rid  of  his  company  !) 
much  afflicted  her,  being  given  over  to  sadness  and  silence. 

Then  prepared  she  herself  for  another  world,  being  more  con- 
stant in  prayer  and  pious  exercises  than  ever  before.  Yet  spake 
she  very  little  to  any,  sighing  out  more  than  she  said,  and  making 
still  music  to  God  in  her  heart. 

And  as  the  red  rose,  though  outwardly  not  so  fragrant,  is  in- 
wardly far  more  cordial  than  the  damask,  being  more  thrifty  of  its 
sweetness,  and  reserving  it  in  itself;  so  the  religion  of  this  dying 
queen  was  most  turned  inward,  in  soliloquies  betwixt  God  and  her 
own  soul,  though  she  wanted  not  outward  expressions  thereof. 
When  her  speech  failed  her,  she  spake  with  her  heart,  tears,  eyes, 


THE  HOLY  STATE  AND   THE  PROFANE   STATE.       127 

hands  and  other  signs,  so  commending  herself  to  God,  the  best 
Interpreter,  who  understands  what  his  saints  desire  to  say.  Thus 
died  queen  Elizabeth ;  whilst  living,  the  first  maid  on  earth  ;  and 
when  dead,  the  second  in  heaven. 

Surely,  the  kingdom  had  died  with  their  queen,  had  not  the 
fainting  spirits  thereof  been  refreshed  by  the  coming-in  of  gracious 
king  James.  She  was  of  person,  tall :  of  hair  and  complexion, 
fair,  well-favoured,  but  high-nosed ;  of  limb  and  feature,  neat ;  of 
a  stately  and  majestic  deportment.  She  had  a  piercing  eye, 
wherewith  she  used  to  touch  what  metal  [mettle]  strangers  were 
made  of,  who  came  into  her  presence.  But  as  she  counted  it  a 
pleasant  conquest,  with  her  majestic  look  to  dash  strangers  out  of 
countenance  ;  so  she  was  merciful  in  pursuing  those  whom  she 
overcame ;  and  afterwards  would  cherish  and  comfort  them  with 
her  smiles,  if  perceiving  towardliness  and  an  ingenuous  modesty 
in  them.  She  much  affected  rich  and  costly  apparel ;  and  if  ever 
jewels  had  just  cause  to  be  proud,  it  was  with  her  wearing  them. 


VII. 

JOHN    MILTON. 

(1608-1674.) 

AREOPAGITICA ; 

A    SPEECH    OF    MR.    JOHN    MILTON    FOR   THE    LIBERTY    OF   UNLICENC'D 
PRINTING,    TO    THE    PARLAMENT    OF    ENGLAND. 

[Written  in  1644.] 

LORDS  and  Commons  of  England,  consider  what  Nation  it  is 
whereof  ye  are  and  whereof  ye  are  the  governours  :  a  Nation  not 
slow  and  dull,  but  of  a  quick,  ingenious,  and  piercing  spirit,  acute 
to  invent,  subtle  and  sinewy  to  discours,  not  beneath  the  reach  of 
any  point  the  highest  that  human  capacity  can  soar  to.  There- 
fore the  studies  of  learning  in  her  deepest  Sciences  have  bin  so 
ancient,  and  so  eminent  among  us,  that  Writers  of  good  antiquity 
and  ablest  judgement  have  bin  perswaded  that  ev'n  the  school  of 
Pythagoras,  and  the  Persian  wisdom  took  beginning  from  the  old 
Philosophy  of  this  Hand.  And  that  wise  and  civill  Roman,  Julius 
Agricola,  who  govern'd  once  here  for  Ccesar,  preferr'd  the  naturall 
wits  of  Britain  before  the  labour'd  studies  of  the  French.  Nor  is 
it  for  nothing  that  the  grave  and  frugal  Transilvania  sends  out 
yearly  from  as  farre  as  the  mountainous  borders  of  Russia,  and 
beyond  the  Hercynian  wilderness,  not  their  youth,  but  their  stay'd 
men,  to  learn  our  language,  and  our  theologic  arts.  Yet  that  which 
is  above  all  this,  the  favour  and  the  love  of  heav'n  we  have  great 
argument  to  think  in  a  peculiar  manner  propitious  and  propend- 
ing1  towards  us.  Why  else  was  this  Nation  chos'n  before  any 
other,  that  out  of  her  as  out  of  Sion  should  be  proclaim'd  and 

1  inclining. 
128 


A  RE  OTA  GITICA.  129 

sounded  forth  the  first  tidings  and  trumpet  of  Reformation  to  all 
Europ.  And  had  it  not  been  the  obstinat  perversenes  of  our 
Prelats  against  the  divine  and  admirable  spirit  of  Wicklef,  to  sup- 
presse  him  as  a  schismatic  and  innovator,  perhaps  neither  the 
Bohemian  Husse  and  Jerom,  no  nor  the  name  of  Luther,  or  of 
Calvin  had  bin  ever  known  :  the  glory  of  reforming  all  our  neigh- 
bours had  been  compleatly  ours.  But  now,  as  our  obdurat  Clergy 
have  with  violence  demean'da  the  matter,  we  are  become  hitherto 
the  latest  and  the  backwardest  Schollers,  of  whom  3  God  offer'd  to 
have  made  us  the  teachers.  Now  once  again  by  all  concurrence 
of  signs,  and  by  the  generall  instinct  of  holy  and  devout  men,  as 
they  daily  and  solemnly  expresse  their  thoughts,  God  is  decreeing 
to  begin  some  new  and  great  period  in  his  Church,  ev'n  to  the 
reforming  of  Reformation  it  self :  what  does  he  then  but  reveal 
Himself  to  his  servants,  and  as  his  manner  is,  first  to  his  English- 
men ;  I  say  as  his  manner  is,  first  to  us,  though  we  mark  not  the 
method  of  his  counsels,  and  are  unworthy.  Behold  now  this  vast 
City ;  a  City  of  refuge,  the  mansion  house  of  liberty,  encompast 
and  surrounded  with  his  protection ;  the  shop  of  warre  hath  not 
there  more  anvils  and  hammers  waking,  to  fashion  out  the  plates  * 
and  instruments  of  armed  Justice  in  defence  of  beleaguer'd  Truth, 
then  there  be  pens  and  heads  there,  sitting  by  their  studious 
lamps,  musing,  searching,  revolving  new  notions  and  idea's  where- 
with to  present,  as  with  their  homage  and  their  fealty  the  ap- 
proaching Reformation :  others  as  fast  reading,  trying  all  things, 
assenting  to  the  force  of  reason  and  convincement.  What  could 
a  man  require  more  from  a  Nation  so  pliant  and  so  prone  to  seek 
after  knowledge  ?  What  wants  there  to  such  a  towardly  and  preg- 
nant soile,  but  wise  and  faithfull  labourers,  to  make  a  knowing 
people,  a  Nation  of  Prophets,  of  Sages,  and  of  Worthies?  We 
reck'n  more  then  five  months  yet  to  harvest ;  there  need  not  be 
five  weeks,  had  we  but  eyes  to  lift  up,  the  fields  are  white  already. 
Where  there  is  much  desire  to  learn,  there  of  necessity  will  be 

2  treated.  8  [of  those]  of  whom.  *  breastplates. 


130  JOHN  MILTON. 

much  arguing,  much  writing,  many  opinions  ;  for  opinion  in  good 
men  is  but  knowledge  in  the  making.  Under  these  fantastic  ter- 
rors of  sect  and  schism,  we  wrong  the  earnest  and  zealous  thirst 
after  knowledge  and  understanding  which  God  hath  stirr'd  up  in 
this  City.  What  some  lament  of,  we  rather  should  rejoice  at, 
should  rather  praise  this  pious  forwardness  among  men,  to  reas- 
sume  the  ill-deputed  care  of  their  Religion  into  their  own  hands 
again.  A  little  generous  prudence,  a  little  forbearance  of  one 
another,  and  som  grain  of  charity  might  win  all  these  diligences 
to  joyn  and  unite  in  one  generall  and  brotherly  search  after  Truth  ; 
could  we  but  forgoe  this  Prelaticall  tradition  of  crowding  free  con- 
sciences and  Christian  liberties  into  canons  and  precepts  of  men. 
I  doubt  not,  if  some  great  and  worthy  stranger  should  come 
among  us,  wise  to  discern  the  mould  and  temper  of  a  people,  and 
how  to  govern  it,  observing  the  high  hopes  and  aims,  the  diligent 
alacrity  of  our  extended  thoughts  and  reasonings  in  the  pursuance 
of  truth  and  freedom,  but  that  he  would  cry  out  as  Pirrhus  did, 
admiring  the  Roman  docility  and  courage,  if  such  were  my  Epi- 
rots,  I  would  not  despair  the  greatest  design  that  could  be  at- 
tempted to  make  a  Church  or  Kingdom  happy.  Yet  these  are 
the  men  cry'd  out  against  for  schismaticks  and  sectaries ;  as  if, 
while  the  Temple  of  the  Lord  was  building,  some  cutting,  some 
squaring  the  marble,  others  hewing  the  cedars,  there  should  be  a 
sort  of  irrationall  men  who  could  not  consider  there  must  be 
many  schisms  and  many  dissections  made  in  the  quarry  and  in  the 
timber,  ere  the  house  of  God  can  be  built.  And  when  every 
stone  is  laid  artfully  together,  it  cannot  be  united  into  a  continuity, 
it  can  but  be  contiguous  in  this  world ;  neither  can  every  peece 
of  the  building  be  of  one  form  ;  nay  rather  the  perfection  consists 
in  this,  that  out  of  many  moderat  varieties  and  brotherly  dissimili- 
tudes that  are  not  vastly  disproportionall  arises  the  goodly  and 
the  graceful  symmetry  that  commends  the  whole  pile  and  struc- 
ture. Let  us  therefore  be  more  considerat  builders,  more  wise  in 
spirituall  architecture,  when  great  reformation  is  expected.  For 
now  the  time  seems  come,  wherein  Moses  the  great  Prophet  may 


AREOPAGITICA.  131 

sit  in  heav'n  rejoycing  to  see  that  memorable  and  glorious  wish  of 
his  fulfill'd,  when  not  only  our  sev'nty  Elders,  but  all  the  Lords 
people  are  become  Prophets.  No  marvell  then  though  some 
men,  and  some  good  men  too  perhaps,  but  young  in  goodnesse, 
as  Joshua  then  was,  envy  them.  They  fret,  and  out  of  their  own 
weaknes  are  in  agony,  lest  those  divisions  and  subdivisions  will 
undoe  us.  The  adversarie  again  applauds,  and  waits  the  hour ; 
when  they  have  brancht  themselves  out,  saith  he,  small  anough 
into  parties  and  partitions,  then  will  be  our  time.  Fool !  he  sees 
not  the  firm  root,  out  of  which  we  all  grow,  though  into  branches : 
nor  will  beware  untill  hee  see  our  small  divided  maniples 5  cutting 
through  at  every  angle  of  his  ill  united  and  unwieldy  brigade. 
And  that  we  are  to  hope  better  of  all  these  supposed  sects  and 
schisms,  and  that  we  shall  not  need  that  solicitude,  honest  perhaps 
though  over  timorous,  of  them  that  vex  in  this  behalf,  but  shall 
laugh  in  the  end  at  those  malicious  applauders  of  our  differences, 
I  have  these  reasons  to  perswade  me. 

First,  when  a  City  shall  be  as  it  were  besieg'd  and  blockt  about, 
her  navigable  river  infested,  inrodes  and  incursions  round,  defi- 
ance and  battell  oft  rumor'd  to  be  marching  up  ev'n  to  her  walls, 
and  suburb  trenches,  that  then  the  people,  or  the  greater  part, 
more  than  at  other  times,  wholly  tak'n  up  with  the  study  of  high- 
est and  most  important  matters  to  be  reform'd,  should  be  disput- 
ing, reasoning,  reading,  inventing,  discoursing,  ev'n  to  a  rarity, 
and  admiration,  things  not  before  discourst  or  writ'n  of,  argues 
first  a  singular  good  will,  contentednesse  and  confidence  in  your 
prudent  foresight  and  safe  government,  Lords  and  Commons ; 
and  from  thence  derives  it  self  to  a  gallant  bravery  and  well 
grounded  contempt  of  their  enemies,  as  if  there  were  no  small 
number  of  as  great  spirits  among  us,  as  his  was,  who,  when  Rome 
was  nigh  besieged  by  Hanibal,  being  in  the  City,  bought  that 
peece  of  ground  at  no  cheap  rate,  whereon  Hanibal  himself  en- 
campt  his  own  regiment.  Next  it  is  a  lively  and  cherfull  presage 

8  companies. 


132  JOHN  MILTON. 

of  our  happy  success  and  victory.  For  as  in  a  body,  when  the 
blood  is  fresh,  the  spirits  pure  and  vigorous,  not  only  to  vital,  but 
to  rationall  faculties,  and  those  in  the  acutest,  and  the  pertest6 
operations  of  wit  and  suttlety,  it  argues  in  what  good  plight  and 
constitution  the  body  is,  so  when  the  cheerfulnesse  of  the  people 
is  so  sprightly  up,  as  that  it  has  not  only  wherewith  to  guard  well 
its  own  freedom  and  safety,  but  to  spare,  and  to  bestow  upon  the 
solidest  and  sublimest  points  of  controversie,  and  new  invention, 
it  betok'ns  us  not  degenerated,  nor  drooping  to  a  fatal  decay,  but 
casting  off  the  old  and  wrincl'd  skin  of  corruption  to  outlive  these 
pangs  and  wax  young  again,  entring  the  glorious  waies  of  Truth 
and  prosperous  vertue  destined  to  become  great  and  honourable 
in  these  latter  ages.  Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and 
puissant  Nation  rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and 
shaking  her  invincible  locks  :  Methinks  I  see  her  as  an  Eagle 
muing "  her  mighty  youth,  and  kindling  her  undazl'd  eyes  at  the 
full  midday  beam ;  purging  and  unsealing  her  long  abused  sight 
at  the  fountain  itself  of  heav'nly  radiance,  while  the  whole  noise 
of  timorous  and  flocking  birds,  with  those  also  that  love  the  twi- 
light, flutter  about,  amazed  at  what  she  means,  and  in  their  envi- 
ous gabble  7/ould  prognosticat  a  year  of  sects  and  schisms. 

What  should  ye  doe  then,  should  ye  suppresse  all  this  flowry 
crop  of  knowledge  and  new  light  sprung  up  and  yet  springing 
daily  in  this  City,  should  ye  set  an  Oligarchy  of  twenty  ingrossers 8 
over  it,  to  bring  a  famin  upon  our  minds  again,  when  we  shall 
know  nothing  but  what  is  measur'd  to  us  by  their  bushel?  Be- 
leeve  it,  Lords  and  Commons,  they  who  counsell  ye  to  such  a 
suppressing,  doe  as  good  as  bid  ye  suppresse  yourselves ;  and  I 
will  soon  shew  how.  If  it  be  desir'd  to  know  the  immediat  cause  of 
all  this  free  writing  and  free  speaking,  there  cannot  be  assign'd  a 
truer  then  your  own  mild,  and  free,  and  human  government ;  it  is 
the  liberty,  Lords  and  Commons,  which  your  own  valorous  and 
happy  counsels  have  purchast  us,  liberty  which  is  the  nurse  of  all 

6  proudest,  highest.         7  renewing  by  moulting.        8  licensers  of  the  press. 


ARE  OP  A  G I  TIC  A.  133 

great  wits ;  this  is  that  which  hath  rarify'd  and  enlightn'd  our 
spirits  like  the  influence  of  heav'n ;  this  is  that  which  hath  enfran- 
chis'd,  enlarg'd  and  lifted  up  our  apprehensions  degrees  above 
themselves.  Ye  cannot  make  us  now  lesse  capable,  lesse  knowing, 
lesse  eagarly  pursuing  of  the  truth,  unlesse  ye  first  make  your 
selves,  that  made  us  so,  lesse  the  lovers,  lesse  the  founders  of  our 
true  liberty.  We  can  grow  ignorant  again,  brutish,  formall,  and 
slavish,  as  ye  found  us  ;  but  you  then  must  first  become  that  which 
ye  cannot  be,  oppressive,  arbitrary,  and  tyrannous,  as  they  were 
from  whom  ye  have  free'd  us.  That  our  hearts  are  now  more 
capacious,  our  thoughts  more  erected  to  the  search  and  expecta- 
tion of  greatest  and  exactest  things,  is  the  issue  of  your  own  vertu 
propagated  in  us ;  ye  cannot  suppresse  that  unlesse  ye  reinforce  an 
abrogated  and  mercilesse  law,  that  fathers  may  dispatch  at  will 
their  own  children.  And  who  shall  then  sticke  closest  to  ye,  and 
excite  others?  not  he  who  takes  up  armes  for  cote  and  conduct,9 
and  his  four  nobles  of  Danegelt.10  Although  I  dispraise  not  the 
defence  of  just  immunities,  yet  love  my  peace  better,  if  that  were 
all.  Give  me  the  liberty  to  know,  to  utter,  and  to  argue  freely 
according  to  conscience,  above  all  liberties. 

What  would  be  best  advis'd  then,  if  it  be  found  so  hurtfull  and 
so  unequall  to  suppresse  opinions  for  the  newnes,  or  the  unsutable- 
nes  to  a  customary  acceptance,  will  not  be  my  task  to  say ;  I  only 
shall  repeat  what  I  have  learnt  from  one  of  your  own  honourable 
number,  a  right  noble  and  pious  lord,  who11  had  he  not  sacrific'd 
his  life  and  fortunes  to  the  Church  and  Commonwealth,  we 
had  not  now  mist  and  bewayl'd  a  worthy  and  undoubted 
patron  of  this  argument.  Ye  know  him  I  am  sure  ;  yet  I  for  hon- 
ours sake,  and  may  it  be  eternall  to  him,  shall  name  him,  the  Lord 
Brook.  He  writing  of  Episcopacy,  and  by  the  way  treating  of 

9  "To  resist  illegal' taxation  for  the  clothing  and  conveyance  of  troops,  and 
also  for  the  provision  of  a  navy."  —  HALES. 

13  Shipmoney;  originally  money  levied  by  Ethelred  II.  to  buy  off  the 
Danes. 

11  No  predicate,  as  often  in  Elizabethan  English. 


134  JOHN  MILTON. 

sects  and  schisms,  left  Ye  his  vote,  or  rather  now  the  last  words 
of  his  dying  charge,  which  I  know  will  ever  be  of  dear  and  hon- 
our'd  regard  with  Ye,  so  full  of  meeknes  and  breathing  charity, 
that  next  to  his  last  testament,  who  bequeath'd  love  and  peace  to 
his  Disciples,  I  cannot  call  to  mind  where  I  have  read  or  heard 
words  more  mild  and  peacefull.  He  there  exhorts  us  to  hear 
with  patience  and  humility  those,  however  they  be  miscall'd,  that 
desire  to  live  purely,  in  such  a  use  of  Gods  Ordinances  as  the 
best  guidance  of  their  conscience  gives  them,  and  to  tolerat  them, 
though  in  some  disconformity  to  our  selves.  The  book  it  self 
will  tell  us  more  at  large  being  publisht  to  the  world,  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  Parlament  by  him  who  both  for  his  life  and  for  his 
death  deserves  that  what  advice  he  left  be  not  laid  by  without 
perusall. 

And  now  the  time  in  speciall  is,  by  priviledge  to  write  and 
speak  what  may  help  to  the  furder  discussing  of  matters  in  agita- 
tion. The  Temple  of  Janus  with  his  two  controversal  faces  might 
now  not  unsignificantly  be  set  open.  And  though  all  the  windes 
of  doctrin  were  let  loose  to  play  upon  the  earth,  so  Truth  be  in 
the  field,  we  do  injuriously  by  licencing  and  prohibiting  to  mis- 
doubt her  strength.  Let  her  and  Falsehood  grapple ;  who  ever 
knew  Truth  put  to  the  wors  in  a  free  and  open  encounter?  Her 
confuting  is  the  best  and  surest  suppressing.  He  who  hears  what 
praying  there  is  for  light  and  clearer  knowledge  to  be  sent  down 
among  us,  would  think  of  other  matters  to  be  constituted  beyond 
the  discipline  of  Geneva,  fram'd  and  fabric't  already  to  our  hands. 
Yet  when  the  new  light  which  we  beg  for  shines  in  upon  us,  there 
be  who  envy  and  oppose,  if  it  come  not  first  in  at  their  casements. 
What  a  collusion  is  this,  whenas  we  are  exhorted  by  the  wise  man 
to  use  diligence,  to  seek  for  wisdom  as  for  hidden  treasures  early 
and  late,  that  another  order  shall  enjoyn  us  to  know  nothing  but 
by  statute !  When  a  man  hath  bin  labouring  the  hardest  labour  in 
the  deep  mines  of  knowledge,  hath  furnisht  out  his  findings  in  all 
their  equipage,  drawn  forth  his  reasons  as  it  were  a  battell  raung'd, 
scatter'd  and  defeated  all  objections  in  his  way,  calls  out  his 


AREOPAGITICA.  135 

adversary  into  the  plain,  offers  him  the  advantage  of  wind  and  sun,, 
if  he  please  ;  only  that  he  may  try  the  matter  by  dint  of  argument, 
for  his  opponents  then  to  sculk,  to  lay  ambushments,  to  keep  a 
narrow  bridge  of  licencing  where  the  challenger  should  passe, 
though  it  be  valour  anough  in  shouldiership,  is  but  weaknes  and 
cowardise  in  the  wars  of  Truth.  For  who  knows  not  that  Truth 
is  strong  next  to  the  Almighty?  She  needs  no  policies,  no  strata- 
gems, no  licencings  to  make  her  victorious,  those  are  the  shifts 
and  the  defences  that  error  uses  against  her  power :  give  her  but 
room,  and  do  not  bind  her  when  she  sleeps,  for  then  she  speaks 
not  true,  as  the  old  Proteus  did,  who  spake  oracles  only  when  he 
was  caught  and  bound,  but  then  rather  she  turns  herself  into  all 
shapes  except  her  own,  and  perhaps  tunes  her  voice  according  to 
the  time,  as  Micaiah  did  before  Ahab,  untill  she  be  adjur'd  into 
her  own  likenes.  Yet  is  it  not  impossible  that  she  may  have  more 
shapes  then  one.  What  else  is  all  that  rank  of  things  indifferent, 
wherein  Truth  may  be  on  this  side,  or  on  the  other,  without  being 
unlike  her  self?  What  but  a  vain  shadow  else  is  the  abolition  of 
those  ordinances,  that  hand  writing  nayl'd  to  the  crosse,  what 
great  purchase  is  this  Christian  liberty  which  Paul  so  often  boasts 
of?  His  doctrine  is,  that  he  who  eats  or  eats  not,  regards  a  day 
or  regards  it  not,  may  doe  either  to  the  Lord.  How  many  other 
things  might  be  tolerated  in  peace,  and  left  to  conscience,  had  we 
but  charity,  and  were  it  not  the  chief  strong  hold  of  our  hypocrisie 
to  be  ever  judging  one  another?  I  fear  yet  this  iron  yoke  of  out- 
ward conformity  hath  left  a  slavish  print  upon  our  necks ;  the 
ghost  of  a  linnen  decency  yet  haunts  us.  We  stumble  and  are 
impatient  at  the  least  dividing  of  one  visible  congregation  from 
another,  though  it  be  not  in  fundamentalls ;  and  through  our  for- 
wardnes  to  suppresse,  and  our  backwardnes  to  recover  any  en- 
thrall'd  peece  of  truth  out  of  the  gripe  of  custom,  we  care  not  to 
keep  truth  separated  from  truth,  which  is  the  fiercest  rent  and 
disunion  of  all.  We  doe  not  see  that  while  we  still  affect  by  all 
means  a  rigid  externall  formality,  we  may  as  soon  fall  again  into  a 
grosse  conforming  stupidity,  a  stark  and  dead  congealment  of 


136  JOHN  MILTON. 

.wood  and  hay  and  stubble  forc't  and  frozen  together,  which  is 
more  to  the  sudden  degenerating  of  a  Church  then  many  subdi- 
chotomies 12  of  petty  schisms.  Not  that  I  can  think  well  of  every 
light  separation,  or  that  all  in  a  Church  is  to  be  expected  gold  and 
silver  and  previous  stones :  it  is  not  possible  for  man  to  sever  the 
wheat  from  the  tares,  the  good  fish  from  the  other  frie ;  that  must 
be  the  Angels  Ministery  at  the  end  of  mortall  things.  Yet  if  all 
cannot  be  of  one  mind,  as  who  looks  they  should  be  ?  this  doubt- 
les  is  more  wholsome,  more  prudent,  and  more  Christian  that 
many  be  tolerated  rather  than  all  compelPd.  I  mean  not 
tolerated  Popery,  and  open  superstition,  which  as  it  extirpats 
all  religions  and  civill  supremacies,  so  it  self  should  be  extirpat, 
provided  first  that  all  charitable  and  compassionat  means  be 
us'd  to  win  and  regain  the  weak  and  misled  :  that  also  which 
is  impious  or  evil  absolutely  either  against  faith  or  maners  no  law 
can  possibly  permit,  that  intends  not  to  unlaw  it  self :  but  those 
neighboring  differences,  or  rather  indifferences,  are  what  I  speak 
of,  whether  in  some  point  of  doctrine  or  of  discipline,  which 
though  they  may  be  many,  yet  need  not  interrupt  the  unity  of 
Spirit,  if  we  could  but  find  among  us  the  bond  of  peace.  In  the 
mean  while  if  any  one  would  write,  and  bring  his  helpfull  hand  to 
the  slow-moving  Reformation  we  labour  under,  if  Truth  have 
spok'n  to  him  before  others,  or  but  seem'd  at  least  to  speak,  who 
hath  so  bejesuited  us  that  we  should  trouble  that  man  with  asking 
licence  to  doe  so  worthy  a  deed  ?  and  not  consider  this,  that  if  it 
come  to  prohibiting,  there  is  not  ought  more  likely  to  be  prohib- 
ited then  truth  it  self;  whose  first  appearance  to  our  eyes  blear'd 
and  dimm'd  with  prejudice  and  custom,  is  more  unsightly  and 
unplausible  then  many  errors,  ev'n  as  the  person  is  of  many  a 
great  man  slight  and  contemptible  to  see  to.  And  what  do  they 
tell  us  vainly  of  new  opinions,  when  this  very  opinion  of  theirs, 
that  none  must  be  heard  but  whom  they  like,  is  the  worst  and 
newest  opinion  of  all  others ; 13  and  is  the  chief  cause  why  sects 

12  subdivisions. 

18  Survival  of  the  Elizabethan  idiom,  which  has  lasted  to  the  present  century. 


AREOPAGITICA.  137 

and  schisms  doe  so  much  abound,  and  true  knowledge  is  kept  at 
distance  from  us?  Besides  yet  a  greater  danger  which  is  in  it. 
For  when  God  shakes  a  Kingdome  with  strong  and  healthful! 
commotions  to  a  generall  reforming,  'tis  not  untrue  that  many 
sectaries  and  false  teachers  are  then  busiest  in  seducing ;  but  yet 
more  true  it  is,  that  God  then  raises  to  his  own  work  men  of  rare 
abilities,  and  more  then  common  industry  not  only  to  look  back 
and  revise  what  hath  bin  taught  heretofore,  but  to  gain  furder 
and  goe  on  some  new  enlightn'd  steps  in  the  discovery  of  truth. 
For  such  is  the  order  of  Gods  enlightning  his  Church,  to  dispense 
and  deal  out  by  degrees  his  beam,  so  as  our  earthly  eyes  may  best 
sustain  it.  Neither  is  God  appointed  and  confin'd,  where  and 
out  of  what  place  these  his  chosen  shall  be  first  heard  to  speak ; 
for  he  sees  not  as  man  sees,  chooses  not  as  man  chooses,  lest  we 
should  devote  our  selves  again  to  set  places,  and  assemblies,  and 
outward  callings  of  men ;  planting  our  faith  one  while  in  the  old 
Convocation  house,  and  another  while  in  the  Chappell  at  West- 
minster ;  when  all  the  faith  and  religion  that  shall  be  there  canon- 
iz'd,  is  not  sufficient  without  plain  convincement,  and  the  charity 
of  patient  instruction,  to  supple  the  least  bruise  of  conscience,  to 
edifie  the  meanest  Christian,  who  desires  to  walk  in  the  Spirit, 
and  not  in  the  letter  of  human  trust,  for  all  the  number  of  voices 
that  can  be  there  made,  no,  though  Harry  the  7.  himself  there, 
with  all  his  leige  tombs  about  him,  should  lend  them  voices  from 
the  dead,  to  swell  their  number.  And  if  the  men  be  erroneous 
who  appear  to  be  the  leading  schismaticks,  what  witholds  us  but 
our  sloth,  our  self-will,  and  distrust  in  the  right  cause,  that  we  doe 
not  give  them  gentle  meetings  and  gentle  dismissions,  that  we 
debate  not  and  examin  the  matter  thoroughly  with  liberall  and 
frequent  audience  ;  if  not  for  their  sakes,  yet  for  our  own,  seeing 
no  man  who  hath  tasted  learning,  but  will  confesse  the  many 
waies  of  profiting  by  those  who  not  contented  with  stale  receits 
are  able  to  manage,  and  set  forth  new  positions  to  the  world? 
And  were  they  but  as  the  dust  and  cinders  of  our  feet,  so  long  as 
in  that  notion  they  may  serve  to  >ol?sh  and  brighten  the  armoury 


138  JOHN  MILTON. 

of  Truth,  ev'n  for  that  respect  they  were  not  utterly  to  be  cast 
away.  But  if  they  be  of  those  whom  God  hath  fitted  for  the  spe- 
ciall  use  of  these  times  with  eminent  and  ample  gifts,  and  those 
perhaps  neither  among  the  Priests,  nor  among  the  Pharisees,  and 
we  in  the  hast  of  a  precipitant  zeal  shall  make  no  distinction,  but 
resolve  to  stop  their  mouths,  because  we  fear  they  come  with  new 
and  dangerous  opinions,  as  we  commonly  fore-judge  them  ere  we 
understand  them,  no  lesse  then  woe  to  us,  while,  thinking  thus  to 
defend  the  Gospel,  we  are  found  the  persecutors. 

There  have  bin  not  a  few  since  the  beginning  of  this  Parlament, 
both  of  the  Presbytery  and  others  who  by  their  unlicen[c]t  books 
to  the  contempt  of  an  Imprimatur™  first  broke  that  triple  ice 
clung  about  our  hearts,  and  taught  the  people  to  see  day :  I  hope 
that  none  of  those  were  the  perswaders  to  renew  upon  us  this 
bondage  which  they  themselves  have  wrought  so  much  good  by 
contemning.  But  if  neither  the  check  that  Moses  gave  to  young 
Joshua,  nor  the  countermand  which  our  Saviour  gave  to  young 
John,  who  was  so  ready  to  prohibit  those  whom  he  thought  unli- 
cenc't,  be  not  anough  to  admonish  our  Elders  how  unacceptable 
to  God  their  testy  mood  of  prohibiting  is,  if  neither  their  own 
remembrance  what  evill  hath  abounded  in  the  Church  by  this 
lett 15  of  licencing,  and  what  good  they  themselves  have  begun  by 
transgressing  it,  be  not  anough,  but  that  they  will  perswade,  and 
execute  the  most  Dominican  part  of  the  Inquisition  over  us,  and 
are  already  with  one  foot  in  the  stirrup  so  active  at  suppressing,  it 
would  be  no  unequall  distribution  in  the  first  place  to  suppresse 
the  suppressors  themselves ;  whom  the  change  of  their  condition 
hath  puft  up,  more  then  their  late  experience  of  harder  times  hath 
made  wise. 

And  as  for  regulating  the  Presse,  let  no  man  think  to  have  the 
honour  of  advising  ye  better  then  your  selves  have  done  in  that 
Order  publisht  next  before  this,  that  no  book  be  Printed,  unlesse 
the  Printers  and  the  Authors  name,  or  at  least  the  Printers-  be 

14  license  to  print.  16  hindrance. 


ARE  OP  A  GITICA.  1 39 

register'd.  Those  which  otherwise  come  forth,  if  they  be  found 
mischievous  and  libellous,  the  fire  and  the  executioner  will  be  the 
timeliest  and  the  most  effectuall  remedy  that  mans  prevention  can 
use.  For  this  authentic  Spanish  policy16  of  licencing  books,  if  I 
have  said  ought,  will  prove  the  most  unlicenc't  book  it  self  within 
a  short  while ;  and  was  the  immediat  image  of  a  Star-chamber 
decree  to  that  purpose  made  in  those  very  times  when  that  Court 
did  the  rest  of  those  her  pious  works,  for  which  she  is  now  fall'n 
from  the  Starres  with  Lucifer.  Whereby  ye  may  guesse  what 
kinde  of  State  prudence,  what  love  of  the  people,  what  care  of 
Religion,  or  good  manners  there  was  at  the  contriving,  although 
with  singular  hypocrisie  it  pretended  to  bind  books  to  their  good 
behaviour.  And  how  it  got  the  upper  hand  of  your  precedent 
Order  so  well  constituted  before,  if  we  may  beleeve  those  men 
whose  profession  gives  them  cause  to  enquire  most,  it  may  be 
doubted  there  was  in  it  the  fraud  of  some  old  patentees  and 
monopolizers  in  the  trade  of  book-selling ;  who  under  pretence  of 
the  poor  in  their  Company  not  to  be  defrauded,  and  the  just 
retaining  of  each  man  his  severall  copy,  which  God  forbid  should 
be  gainsaid,  brought  divers  glosing  colours  to  the  House,  which 
were  indeed  but  colours,  and  serving  to  no  end  except  it  be  to 
exercise  a  superiority  over  their  neighbours,  men  who  doe  not 
therefore  labour  in  an  honest  profession  to  which  learning  is  in- 
detted,  that  they  should  be  made  other  mens  vassals.  Another 
end  is  thought  was  aym'd  at  by  some  of  them  in  procuring  by 
petition  this  Order,  that  having  power  in  their  hands,  malignant 
books  might  the  easier  scape  abroad,  as  the  event  shews.  But  of 
these  Sophisms  and  Elenchs "  of  marchandize  I  skill  not :  This 
I  know,  that  errors  in  a  good  government  and  in  a  bad  are  equally 
almost  incident ;  for  what  Magistrate  may  not  be  mis-inform'd, 
and  much  the  sooner,  if  liberty  of  Printing  be  reduc't  into  the 


16  "  policy  genuinely  and  really  Spanish."  —  See  HALES'S  note. 

17  "  These  fallacious  arguments  urged  by  the  booksellers  and  their  refuta- 
tions." —  HALES. 


140  yOHN  MILTON. 

power  of  a  few ;  but  to  redresse  willingly  and  speedily  what  hath 
bin  err'd,  and  in  highest  autority  to  esteem  a  plain  advertisement 
more  then  others  have  done  a  sumptuous  bribe,  is  a  vertue  (hon- 
our'd  Lords  and  Commons)  answerable  to  Your  highest  actions, 
and  whereof  none  can  participat  but  greatest  and  wisest  men. 


VIII. 

JEREMY    TAYLOR. 

(1613-1667.) 

TWENTY-SEVEN  SERMONS  PREACHED  AT  GOLDEN 

GROVE. 

[Written  in  1651.] 

SERMON  IX. 

THE    FAITH    AND    PATIENCE    OF   THE    SAINTS  ;     OR    THE    RIGHTEOUS 
CAUSE    OPPRESSED. 

PART  I. 

For  the  time  is  come  that  judgment  must  begin  at  the  house  of 
God:  and  if  it  first  begin  at  us,  what  shall  the  end  be  of  them 
that  obey  not  the  Gospel  of  God? 

And  if  the  righteous  scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  ungodly 
and  the  sinner  appear? —  i  Peter  iv.  17,  18. 

So  long  as  the  world  lived  by  sense,  and  discourses  of  natural 
reason,  as  they  were  abated  with  human  infirmities,  and  not  at  all 
heightened  by  the  Spirit  and  divine  revelations ;  so  long  men  took 
their  accounts  of  good  and  bad  by  their  being  prosperous  or  un- 
fortunate :  and  amongst  the  basest  and  most  ignorant  of  men,  that 
only  was  accounted  honest  which  was  profitable  ;  and  he  only  wise, 
that  was  rich ;  and  those  men  beloved  of  God,  who  received  from 
him  all  that  might  satisfy  their  lust,  their  ambition,  or  their  re- 
venge. 

—  Fatis  accede,  Deisque, 

Et  cole  felices,  miser 03  fuge  :  sidera  terra 
Ut  distant,  utflamma  mart,  sic  utile  recto.* 

1  Approach  the  fates  and  the  gods,  and  honor  the  happy,  flee  the  unhappy  ; 
as  the  stars  are  distant  from  the  earth,  as  fire  from  water,  so  is  the  useful  from 
the  right.  —  LUCAN,  Pharsalia,  VIII.  486. 

141 


142  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

But  because  God  sent  wise  men  into  the  world,  and  they  were 
treated  rudely  by  the  world,  and  exercised  with  evil  accidents, 
and  this  seemed  so  great  a  discouragement  to  virtue,  that  even 
these  wise  men  were  more  troubled  to  reconcile  virtue  and  misery, 
than  to  reconcile  their  affections  to  the  suffering ;  God  was  pleased 
to  enlighten  their  reason  with  a  little  beam  of  faith,  or  else  height- 
ened their  reason  by  wiser  principles  than  those  of  vulgar  under- 
standings, and  taught  them  in  the  clear  glass  of  faith,  or  the  dim 
perspective  of  philosophy,  to  look  beyond  the  cloud,  and  there  to 
spy  that  there  stood  glories  behind  their  curtain,  to  which  they 
could  not  come  but  by  passing  through  the  cloud,  and  being  wet 
with  the  dew  of  heaven  and  the  waters  of  affliction.  And  accord- 
ing as  the  world  grew  more  enlightened  by  faith,  so  it  grew  more 
dark  with  mourning  and  sorrows.  God  sometimes  sent  a  light  of 
fire,  and  a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  and  the  brightness  of  an  angel,  and 
the  lustre  of  a  star,  and  the  sacrament  of  a  rainbow,  to  guide  his 
people  through  their  portion  of  sorrows,  and  to  lead  them  through 
troubles  to  rest :  but  as  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  approached 
towards  the  chamber  of  the  east,  and  sent  the  harbingers  of  light 
peeping  through  the  curtains  of  the  night,  and  leading  on  the  day 
of  faith  and  brightest  revelation ;  so  God  sent  degrees  of  trouble 
upon  wise  and  good  men,  that  now,  in  the  same  degree  in  the 
which  the  world  lives  by  faith,  and  not  by  sense,  in  the  same 
degree  they  might  be  able  to  live  in  virtue  even  while  she  lived  in 
trouble,  and  not  reject  so  great  a  beauty,  because  she  goes  in 
mourning  and  hath  a  black  cloud  of  Cyprus  drawn  before  her  face. 
Literally  thus  :  God  first  entertained  their  services,  and  allured 
and  prompted  on  the  infirmities  of  the  infant-world  by  temporal 
prosperity ;  but  by  degrees  changed  his  method ;  and,  as  men 
grew  stronger  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  the  expectations  of 
heaven,  so  they  grew  weaker  in  their  fortunes,  more  afflicted  in 
their  bodies,  more  abated  in  their  expectations,  more  subject  to 
their  enemies,  and  were  to  endure  the  contradiction  of  sinners, 
and  the  immission  of  the  sharpnesses  of  Providence  and  divine 
economy. 


SEXMONS  PRE 'ACHED  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE.  143 

First,  Adam  was  placed  in  a  garden  of  health  and  pleasure, 
from  which  when  he  fell,  he  was  only  tied  to  enter  into  the  cove- 
nant of  natural  sorrows,  which  he  and  all  his  posterity  till  the  flood 
ran  through  :  but  in  all  that  period  they  had  the  whole  wealth  of 
the  earth  before  them ;  they  needed  not  fight  for  empires,  or 
places  for  their  cattle  to  graze  in;  they  lived  long,  and  felt  no 
want,  no  slavery,  no  tyranny,  no  war ;  and  the  evils  that  happened, 
were  single,  personal,  and  natural ;  and  no  violences  were  then 
done,  but  they  were  like  those  things  which  the  law  calls  '  rare 
contingencies ; '  for  which  as  the  law  can  now  take  no  care  and 
make  no  provisions,  so  then  there  was  no  law,  but  men  lived 
free,  and  rich,  and  long,  and  they  exercised  no  virtues  but  natural, 
and  knew  no  felicity  but  natural :  and  so  long  their  prosperity  was 
just  as  was  their  virtue,  because  it  was  a  natural  instrument 
towards  all  that  which  they  knew  of  happiness.  But  this  public 
easiness  and  quiet,  the  world  turned  into  sin ;  and  unless  God  did 
compel  men  to  do  themselves  good,  they  would  undo  themselves  : 
and  then  God  broke  in  upon  them  with  a  flood,  and  destroyed 
that  generation,  that  he  might  begin  the  government  of  the  world 
upon  a  new  stock,  and  bind  virtue  upon  men's  spirits  by  new 
bands,  endeared  to  them  by  new  hopes  and  fears. 

Then  God  made  new  laws,  and  gave  to  princes  the  power  of 
the  sword,  and  men  might  be  punished  to  death  in  certain  cases, 
and  man's  life  was  shortened,  and  slavery  was  brought  into  the 
world  and  the  state  of  servants  :  and  then  war  began,  and  evils 
multiplied  upon  the  face  of  the  earth ;  in  which  it  is  naturally 
certain  that  they  that  are  most  violent  and  injurious,  prevailed 
upon  the  weaker  and  more  innocent;  and  every  tyranny  that 
began  from  Nimrod  to  this  day,  and  every  usurper,  was  a  peculiar 
argument  to  shew  that  God  began  to  teach  the  world  virtue  by 
suffering ;  and  that  therefore  he  suffered  tyrannies  and  usurpations 
to  be  in  the  world,  and  to  be  prosperous,  and  the  rights  of  men 
to  be  snatched  away  from  the  owners,  that  the  world  might  be 
established  in  potent  and  settled  governments,  and  the  sufferers 
be  taught  all  the  passive  virtues  of  the  soul.  For  so  God  brings 


144  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

good  out  of  evil,  turning  tyranny  into  the  benefits  of  government, 
and  violence  into  virtue,  and  sufferings  into  rewards.  And  this 
was  the  second  change  of  the  world :  personal  miseries  were 
brought  in  upon  Adam  and  his  posterity,  as  a  punishment  of  sin 
in  the  first  period ;  and  in  the  second,  public  evils  were  brought 
in  by  tyrants  and  usurpers,  and  God  suffered  them  as  the  first 
elements  of  virtue,  men  being  just  newly  put  to  school  to  infant 
sufferings.  But  all  this  was  not  much. 

Christ's  line  was  not  yet  drawn  forth ;  it  began  not  to  appear  in 
what  family  the  King  of  sufferings  should  descend,  till  Abraham's 
time ;  and  therefore,  till  then  there  were  no  greater  sufferings  than 
what  I  have  now  reckoned.  But  when  Abraham's  family  was 
chosen  from  among  the  many  nations,  and  began  to  belong  to 
God  by  a  special  right,  and  he  was  designed  to  be  the  father  of 
the  Messias  ;  then  God  found  out  a  new  way  to  try  him,  even  with 
a  sound  affliction,  commanding  him  to  offer  his  beloved  Isaac ; 
but  this  was  accepted,  and  being  intended  by  Abraham,  was  not 
intended  by  God ;  for  this  was  a  type  of  Christ,  and  therefore 
was  also  but  a  type  of  sufferings.  And  excepting  the  sufferings  of 
the  old  periods,  and  the  sufferings  of  nature,  and  accident,  we  see 
no  change  made  for  a  long  time  after ;  but  God  having  established 
a  law  in  Abraham's  family,  did  build  it  upon  promises  of  health, 
and  peace,  and  victory,  and  plenty,  and  riches ;  and  so  long  as 
they  did  not  prevaricate2  the  law  of  their  God,  so  long  they  were 
prosperous  :  but  God  kept  a  remnant  of  Canaanites  in  the  land, 
like  a  rod  held  over  them,  to  vex  or  to  chastise  them  into  obedi- 
ence, in  which  while  they  persevered,  nothing  could  hurt  them ; 
and  that  saying  of  David  needs  no  other  sense  but  the  letter  of  its 
own  expression,  "  I  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old ;  and  yet  I 
never  saw  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  their 
bread."  The  godly  generally  were  prosperous,  and  a  good  cause 
seldom  had  an  ill  end,  and  a  good  man  never  died  an  ill  death,  — 
till  the  law  had  spent  a  great  part  of  its  time,  and  it  descended 

2  corrupt. 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT   GOLDEN  GROVE.  145 

towards  its  declension  and  period.  But,  that  the  great  Prince  of 
sufferings  might  not  appear  upon  his  stage  of  tragedies  without 
some  forerunners  of  sorrow,  God  was  pleased  to  choose  out  some 
good  men,  and  honour  them,  by  making  them  to  become  little 
images  of  suffering.  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Zachariah,  were 
martyrs  of  the  law ;  but  these  were  single  deaths  :  Shadrach, 
Meshech,  and  Abednego,  were  thrown  into  a  burning  furnace,  and 
Daniel  into  a  den  of  lions,  and  Susanna  was  accused  for  adultery ; 
but  these  were  but  little  arrests  of  the  prosperity  of  the  godly. 
As  the  time  drew  nearer  that  Christ  should  be  manifest,  so  the 
sufferings  grew  bigger  and  more  numerous  :  and  Antiochus  raised 
up  a  sharp  persecution  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  in  which 
many  passed  through  the  red  sea  of  blood  into  the  bosom  of 
Abraham  ;  and  then  Christ  came.  And  that  was  the  third  period 
in  which  the  changed  method  of  God's  providence  was  perfected  : 
for  Christ  was  to  do  his  great  work  by  sufferings,  and  by  sufferings 
was  to  enter  into  blessedness ;  and  by  his  passion  he  was  made 
Prince  of  the  catholic  church,  and  as  our  head  was,  so  must  the 
members  be.  God  made  the  same  covenant  with  us  that  he  did 
with  his  most  holy  Son,  and  Christ  obtained  no  better  conditions 
for  us  than  for  himself;  that  was  not  to  be  looked  for ;  "  The  ser- 
vant must  not  be  above  his  master ;  it  is  well  if  he  be  as  his 
master  ;  if  the  world  persecuted  him,  they  will  also  persecute  us  : " 
and  "  from  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
suffers  violence,  and  the  violent  take  it  by  force  ; "  not  '  the  violent 
doers,'  but  '  the  sufferers  of  violence ; '  for  though  the  old  law 
was  established  in  the  provinces  of  temporal  prosperity ;  yet  the 
Gospel  is  founded  in  temporal  adversity ;  it  is  directly  a  cove- 
nant of  sufferings  and  sorrows ;  for  now  "  the  time  is  come  that 
judgment  must  begin  at  the  house  of  God."  That  is  the  sense 
and  design  of  the  text  •,  and  I  intend  it  as  a  direct  antimony 3  to 
the  common  persuasions  of  tyrannous,  carnal,  and  vicious  men, 
who  reckon  nothing  good  but  what  is  prosperous  :  for  though  that 

3  antidote. 


146  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

proposition  had  many  degrees  of  truth  in  the  beginning  of  the 
law,  yet  the  case  is  now  altered,  God  hath  established  its  contra- 
dictory ;  and  now  every  good  man  must  look  for  persecution,  and 
every  good  cause  must  expect  to  thrive  by  the  sufferings  and 
patience  of  holy  persons  :  and,  as  men  do  well,  and  suffer  evil, 
so  they  are  dear  to  God;  and  whom  he  loves  most,  he  afflicts 
most,  and  does  this  with  a  design  of  the  greatest  mercy  in  the 
world. 

i.  Then,  the  state  of  the  Gospel  is  a  state  of  sufferings,  not  of 
temporal  prosperities.  This  was  foretold  by  the  prophets  :  "  A 
fountain  shall  go  out  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  '  et  irrigabit  torren- 
tem  spinarum  '  (so  it  is  in  the  Vulgar  Latin),  and  it  shall  water 
the  torrent  of  thorns,"  that  is,  the  state  or  time  of  the  Gospel, 
which,  like  a  torrent,  shall  carry  all  the  world  before  it,  and,  like  a 
torrent,  shall  be  fullest  in  ill  weather ;  and  by  its  banks  shall  grow 
nothing  but  thorns  and  briers,  sharp  afflictions,  temporal  infelici- 
ties, and  persecution.  This  sense  of  the  words  is  more  fully 
explained  in  the  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah.  "  Upon  the  ground 
of  my  people  shall  thorns  and  briers  come  up ;  how  much  more 
in  all  the  houses  of  the  city  of  rejoicing?"  Which  prophecy  is 
the  same  in  the  style  of  the  prophets,  that  my  text  is  in  the  style 
of  the  Apostles.  The  house  of  God  shall  be  watered  with  the 
dew  of  heaven,  and  there  shall  spring  up  briers  in  it :  '  Judgment 
must  begin  there  ; '  but  how  much  more  '  in  the  houses  of  the  city 
of  rejoicing? '  how  much  more  amongst  '  them  that  are  at  ease  in 
Sion,'  that  serve  their  desires,  that  satisfy  their  appetites,  that  are 
given  over  to  their  own  heart's  lust,  that  so  serve  themselves  that 
they  never  serve  God,  that  '  dwell  in  the  city  of  rejoicing? '  They 
are  like  Dives,  whose  portion  was  in  this  life,  '  who  went  in  fine 
linen,  and  fared  deliciously  every  day  : '  they,  indeed,  trample 
upon  their  briers  and  thorns,  and  suffer  them  not  to  grow  in  their 
houses ;  but  the  roots  are  in  the  ground,  and  they  are  reserved 
for  fuel  of  wrath  in  the  day  of  everlasting  burning.  Thus,  you  see, 
it  was  prophesied,  now  see  how  it  was  performed ;  Christ  was  the 
captain  of  our  sufferings,  and  he  began. 


SEXMONS  PLEACHED  AT   GOLDEN  GROVE.  147 

He  entered  into  the  world  with  all  the  circumstances  of 
poverty.  He  had  a  star  to  illustrate  his  birth ;  but  a  stable  for 
his  bedchamber,  and  a  manger  for  his  cradle.  The  angels  sang 
hymns  when  he  was  born ;  but  he  was  cold  and  cried,  uneasy  and 
unprovided.  He  lived  long  in  the  trade  of  a  carpenter ;  he,  by 
whom  God  made  the  world,  had,  in  his  first  years,  the  business  of 
a  mean  and  ignoble  trade.  He  did  good  wherever  he  went,  and 
almost  wherever  he  went,  was  abused.  He  deserved  heaven  for 
his  obedience,  but  found  a  cross  in  his  way  thither  :  and  if  ever  any 
man  had  reason  to  expect  fair  usages  from  God,  and  to  be  dan- 
dled in  the  lap  of  ease,  softness,  and  a  prosperous  fortune,  he  it 
was  only  that  could  deserve  that,  or  anything  that  can  be  good. 
But  after  he  had  chosen  to  live  a  life  of  virtue,  of  poverty,  and 
labour,  he  entered  into  a  state  of  death  ;  whose  shame  and  trouble 
were  great  enough  to  pay  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  And  I 
shall  choose  to  express  this  mystery  in  the  words  of  Scripture. 
He  died  not  by  a  single  or  a  sudden  death,  but  he  was  the  '  Lamb 
slain  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  : '  for  he  was  massacred  in 
Abel,  saith  St.  Paulinus ;  he  was  tossed  upon  the  waves  of  the  sea 
in  the  person  of  Noah ;  it  was  he  that  went  out  of  his  country, 
when  Abraham  was  called  from  Charran,  and  wandered  from  his 
native  soil ;  he  was  offered  up  in  Isaac,  persecuted  in  Jacob,  be- 
trayed in  Joseph,  blinded  in  Samson,  affronted  in  Moses,  sawed  in 
Isaiah,  cast  into  the  dungeon  with  Jeremiah  :  for  all  these  were 
types  of  Christ  suffering.  And  then  his  passion  continued  even 
after  his  resurrection.  For  it  is  he  that  suffers  in  all  his  members; 
it  is  he  that '  endures  the  contradiction  of  all  sinners  ; '  it  is  he  that 
is  '  the  Lord  of  life,  and  is  crucified  again,  and  put  to  open  shame ' 
in  all  the  sufferings  of  his  servants,  and  sins  of  rebels,  and  defi- 
ances of  apostates  and  renegadoes,  and  violence  of  tyrants,  and 
injustice  of  usurpers,  and  the  persecutions  of  his  church.  It  is  he 
that  is  stoned  in  St.  Stephen,  flayed  in  the  person  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew ;  he  was  roasted  upon  St.  Laurence's  gridiron,  exposed  to 
lions  in  St.  Ignatius,  burnt  in  St.  Polycarp,  frozen  in  the  lake  where 
stood  forty  martyrs  of  Cappadocia.  "  Unigenitus  enim  Dei  ad 


148  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

peragendum  mortis  suce  sacramentum  consummavit  omne  genus 
humanarum  passionum"  said  St.  Hilary ;  "  The  sacrament  of 
Christ's  death  is  not  to  be  accomplished  but  by  suffering  all  the 
sorrows  of  humanity." 

All  that  Christ  came  for  was,  or  was  mingled  with,  sufferings ; 
for  all  those  little  joys  which  God  sent,  either  to  recreate  his 
person,  or  to  illustrate  his  office,  were  abated,  or  attended  with 
afflictions  ;  God  being  more  careful  to  establish  in  him  the  covenant 
of  sufferings,  than  to  refresh  his  sorrows.  Presently  after  the 
angels  had  finished  their  hallelujahs,  he  was  forced  to  fly  to  save 
his  life ;  and  the  air  became  full  of  the  shrieks  of  the  desolate 
mothers  of  Bethlehem  for  their  dying  babes.  God  had  no  sooner 
made  him  illustrious  with  a  voice  from  heaven,  and  the  descent  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  upon  him  in  the  waters  of  baptism,  but  he  was 
delivered  over  to  be  tempted  and  assaulted  by  the  devil  in  the 
wilderness.  His  transfiguration  was  a  bright  ray  of  glory ;  but 
then  also  he  entered  into  a  cloud,  and  was  told  a  sad  story  what 
he  was  to  suffer  at  Jerusalem.  And  upon  Palm  Sunday,  when 
he  rode  triumphantly  into  Jerusalem,  and  was  adorned  with  the 
acclamations  of  a  King  and  a  God,  he  wet  the  palms  with  his  tears, 
sweeter  than  the  drops  of  manna,  or  the  little  pearls  of  heaven, 
that  descended  upon  Mount  Hermon ;  weeping,  in  the  midst  of 
this  triumph,  over  obstinate,  perishing,  and  malicious  Jerusalem. 
For  this  Jesus  was  like  the  rainbow,  which  God  set  in  the  clouds 
as  a  sacrament  to  confirm  a  promise,  and  establish  a  grace ;  he 
was  half  made  of  the  glories  of  the  light,  and  half  of  the  moisture 
of  a  cloud ;  in  his  best  days  he  was  but  half  triumph  and  half 
sorrow :  he  was  sent  to  tell  of  his  Father's  mercies,  and  that  God 
intended  to  spare  us ;  but  appeared  not  but  in  the  company  or  in 
the  retinue  of  a  shower,  and  of  foul  weather.  But  I  need  not  tell 
that  Jesus,  beloved  of  God,  was  a  suffering  person :  that  which 
concerns  this  question  most,  is,  that  he  made  for  us  a  covenant  of 
sufferings  :  his  doctrines  were  such  as  expressly  and  by  consequent 
enjoin  and  suppose  sufferings,  and  a  state  of  affliction ;  his  very 
promises  were  sufferings ;  his  beatitudes  were  sufferings ;  his 


SERMONS  PLEACHED  AT   GOLDEN  GROVE.  149 

rewards,  and  his  arguments  to  invite  men  to  follow  him,  were  only 
taken  from  sufferings  in  this  life,  and  the  reward  of  sufferings 
hereafter. 

For  if  we  sum  up  the  commandments  of  Christ,  we  shall  find 
humility,  —  mortification,  —  self-denial,  —  repentance,  —  renounc- 
ing the  world,  —  mourning,  —  taking  up  the  cross,  —  dying  for 
him,  —  patience  and  poverty,  —  to  stand  in  the  chiefest  rank  of 
Christian  precepts,  and  in  the  direct  order  to  heaven  :  "  He  that 
will  be  my  disciple,  must  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  me."  We  must  follow  him  that  was  crowned  with  thorns 
and  sorrows,  him  that  was  drenched  in  Cedron,  nailed  upon  the 
cross,  that  deserved  all  good,  and  suffered  all  evil :  that  is  the  sum 
of  Christian  religion,  as  it  distinguishes  from  all  religions  in  the 
world.  To  which  we  may  add  the  express  precept  recorded  by 
St.  James  ;  "  Be  afflicted,  and  mourn,  and  weep  ;  let  your  laughter 
be  turned  into  mourning,  and  your  joy  into  weeping."  You  see  the 
commandments  :  will  you  also  see  the  promises  ?  These  they  are. 
"  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation ;  in  me,  ye  shall  have 
peace  :  —  Through  many  tribulations  ye  shall  enter  into  heaven  : 
—  He  that  loseth  father  and  mother,  wives  and  children,  houses 
and  lands,  for  my  name's  sake  and  the  Gospel,  shall  receive  a 
hundred  fold  in  this  life,  with  persecution  :  "  that  is  part  of  his 
reward  :  and,  "  He  chastiseth  every  son  that  he  receiveth  ;  —  if  ye 
be  exempt  from  sufferings,  ye  are  bastards,  and  not  sons."  These 
are  some  of  Christ's  promises  :  will  you  see  some  of  Christ's 
blessings  that  he  gives  his  church?  "Blessed  are  the  poor: 
blessed  are  the  hungry  and  thirsty  :  blessed  are  they  that  mourn  : 
blessed  are  the  humble  :  blessed  are  the  persecuted."  Of  the 
eight  beatitudes,  five  of  them  have  temporal  misery  and  mean- 
ness, or  an  afflicted  condition,  for  their  subject.  Will  you  at 
last  see  some  of  the  rewards  which  Christ  hath  propounded  to 
his  servants,  to  invite  them  to  follow  him  ?  "  When  I  am  lifted 
up,  I  will  draw  all  men  after  me:"  when  Christ  is  "lifted  up, 
as  Moses  lift  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,"  that  is,  lifted 
upon  the  cross,  then  "  he  will  draw  us  after  him."  —  "To  you  it  is 


150  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

given  for  Christ,"  saith  St.  Paul,  when  he  went  to  sweeten  and 
flatter  the  Philippians  :  well,  what  is  given  to  them  ?  some  great 
favours,  surely ;  true ;  "  It  is  not  only  given  you  that  you  believe  in 
Christ,"  though  that  be  a  great  matter  —  "  but  also  that  you  suffer 
for  him,"  that  is  the  highest  of  your  honour.  And  therefore  St. 
James,  "  My  brethren,  count  it  all  joy  when  ye  enter  into  divers 
temptations  :  "  and  St.  Peter ;  "  Communicating  with  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ,  rejoice."  And  St.  James  again  ;  "  We  count  them 
blessed  that  have-  suffered:"  and  St.  Paul,  when  he  gives  his 
blessing  to  the  Thessalonians,  useth  this  form  of  prayer ;  "  Our 
Lord  direct  your  hearts  in  the  charity  of  God,  and  in  the  patience 
and  sufferings  of  Christ."  So  that  if  we  will  serve  the  King  of 
sufferings,  whose  crown  was  of  thorns,  whose  sceptre  was  a  reed 
of  scorn,  whose  imperial  robe  was  a  scarlet  of  mockery,  whose 
throne  was  the  cross ;  we  must  serve  him  in  sufferings,  in  poverty 
of  spirit,  in  humility  and  mortification ;  and  for  our  reward  we 
shall  have  persecution,  and  all  its  blessed  consequents.  "  Atque 
hoc  est  esse  Christianum"* 

Since  this  was  done  in  the  green  tree,  what  might  we  expect 
should  be  done  in  the  dry?  Let  us,  in  the  next  place,  consider 
how  God  hath  treated  his  saints  and  servants  in  the  descending 
ages  of  the  Gospel :  that  if  the  best  of  God's  servants  were  follow- 
ers of  Jesus  in  this  covenant  of  sufferings,  we  may  not  think  it 
strange  concerning  the  fiery  trial,  as  if  some  new  thing  had  hap- 
pened to  us.  For  as  the  Gospel  was  founded  in  sufferings,  we 
shall  also  see  it  grow  in  persecutions ;  and  as  Christ's  blood  did 
cement  the  corner-stones,  and  the  first  foundation ;  so  the  blood 
and  sweat,  the  groans  and  sighings,  the  afflictions  and  mortifica- 
tions, of  saints  and  martyrs,  did  make  the  superstructures,  and 
must  at  last  finish  the  building. 

If  we  begin  with  the  Apostles,  who  were  to  persuade  the  world 
to  become  Christian,  and  to  use  proper  arguments  of  invitations, 
we  shall  find  that  they  never  offered  an  argument  of  temporal 

4  And  this  is  to  be  a  Christian. 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE.  151 

prosperity ;  they  never  promised  empires  and  thrones  on  earth, 
nor  riches,  nor  temporal  power :  and  it  would  have  been  soon 
confuted,  if  they  who  were  whipt  and  imprisoned,  banished  and 
scattered,  persecuted  and  tormented,  should  have  promised  sun- 
shine days  to  others  which  they  could  not  to  themselves.  Of  all 
the  Apostles  there  was  not  one  that  died  a  natural  death  but  only 
St.  John  ;  and  did  he  escape  ?  Yes  :  but  he  was  put  into  a  cauldron 
of  scalding  lead  and  oil  before  the  Porta  Latina  in  Rome,  and 
escaped  death  by  miracle,  though  no  miracle  was  wrought  to  make 
him  escape  the  torture.  And,  besides  this,  he  lived  long  in  banish- 
ment, and  that  was  worse  than  St.  Peter's  chains.  "  Sanctus  Petrus 
in  vinculis,  et  Johannes  ante  Por tarn  Latinam"5  were  both  days 
of  martyrdom,  and  church-festivals.  And  after  a  long  and  labori- 
ous life,  and  the  affliction  of  being  detained  from  his  crown,  and 
his  sorrows  for  the  death  of  his  fellow-disciples,  he  died  full  of 
days  and  sufferings.  And  when  St.  Paul  was  taken  into  the 
apostolate,  his  commissions  were  signed  in  these  words ;  "  I  will 
shew  unto  him  how  great  things  he  must  suffer  for  my  name  :  " 
And  his  whole  life  was  a  continual  suffering.  "  Quotidie  morior  " 
was  his  motto,  "  I  die  daily  ;  "  and  his  lesson  that  he  daily  learned 
was,  to  '  know  Christ  Jesus,  and  him  crucified ; '  and  all  his  joy 
was  '  to  rejoice  in  the  cross  of  Christ ; '  and  the  changes  of  his 
life  were  nothing  but  the  changes  of  his  sufferings,  and  the  variety 
of  his  labours.  For  though  Christ  hath  finished  his  own  sufferings 
for  expiation  of  the  world  ;  yet  there  are  varrf.prnjua.Ta.  0\fycwv,  '  por- 
tions that  are  behind  of  the  sufferings '  of  Christ,  which  must  be 
filled  up  by  his  body,  the  church ;  and  happy  are  they  that  put 
in  the  greatest  symbol :  for  '  in  the  same  measure  you  are  par- 
takers of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  in  the  same  shall  ye  be  also 
of  the  consolation.'  And  therefore,  concerning  St.  Paul,  as  it 
was  also  concerning  Christ,  there  is  nothing,  or  but  very  little, 
in  Scripture,  relating  to  his  person  and  chances  of  his  private 
life,  but  his  labours  and  persecutions;  as  if  the  Holy  Ghost 

6  Saint  Peter  in  chains,  and  John  before  the  Porta  Latina. 


152  JEREMY  TAYLOR. 

did  think  nothing  fit  to  stand  upon  record  for  Christ  but  suf- 
ferings. 

And  now  began  to  work  the  greatest  glory  of  the  divine  prov- 
idence ;  here  was  the  case  of  Christianity  at  stake.  The  world 
was  rich  and  prosperous,  learned  and  full  of  wise  men  ;  the  Gospel 
was  preached  with  poverty  and  persecution,  in  simplicity  of  dis- 
course, and  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit :  God  was  on  one  side, 
and  the  devil  on  the  other ;  they  each  of  them  dressed  up  their 
city;  Babylon  upon  earth,  Jerusalem  from  above.  The  devil's 
city  was  full  of  pleasure,  triumphs,  victories,  and  cruelty ;  good 
news  ;  and  great  wealth  ;  conquest  over  kings,  and  making  nations 
tributary  :  they  '  bound  kings  in  chains,  and  the  nobles  with  links  of 
iron ; '  and  the  inheritance  of  the  earth  was  theirs  :  the  Romans 
were  lords  over  the  greatest  part  of  the  world ;  and  God  per- 
mitted to  the  devil  the  firmament  and  increase,  the  wars  and  the 
success  of  that  people  giving  to  him  an  entire  power  of  disposing 
the  great  change  of  the  world,  so  as  might  best  increase  their 
greatness  and  power ;  and  he  therefore  did  it,  because  all  the 
power  of  the  Roman  greatness  was  a  professed  enemy  to  Chris- 
tianity. And  on  the  other  side,  God  was  to  build  up  Jerusalem, 
and  the  kingdom  of  the  Gospel ;  and  he  chose  to  build  it  of 
hewn  stone,  cut  and  broken ;  the  Apostles  he  chose  for  preachers, 
and  they  had  no  learning  ;  women  and  mean  people  were  the 
first  disciples,  and  they  had  no  power ;  the  devil  was  to  lose  his 
kingdom,  he  wanted  no  malice  :  and  therefore  he  stirred  up,  and, 
as  well  as  he  could,  he  made  active  all  the  power  of  Rome,  and 
all  the  learning  of  the  Greeks,  and  all  the  malice  of  barbarous 
people,  and  all  the  prejudice  and  the  obstinacy  of  the  Jews, 
against  this  doctrine  and  institution,  which  preached,  and  prom- 
ised, and  brought,  persecution  along  with  it.  On  the  one  side, 
there  was  ' scandalum  crucis:'6  on  the  other,  ' patientia  sanc- 
torum : ' "  and  what  was  the  event  ?  They  that  had  overcome  the 
world,  could  not  strangle  Christianity.  But  so  have  I  seen  the 

6  the  offence  of  the  cross.  "'  the  patience  of  the  saints. 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT   GOLDEN  GROVE.  153 

sun  with  a  little  ray  of  distant  light  challenge  all  the  power  of 
darkness,  and  without  violence  and  noise,  climbing  up  the  hill, 
hath  made  night  so  to  retire,  that  its  memory  was  lost  in  the  joys 
and  spritefulness  of  the  morning :  and  Christianity  without  vio- 
lence or  armies,  without  resistance  and  self-preservation,  without 
strength  or  human  eloquence,  without  challenging  of  privileges 
or  fighting  against  tyranny,  without  alteration  of  government  and 
scandal  of  princes,  with  its  humility  and  meekness,  with  toler- 
ation and  patience,  with  obedience  and  charity,  with  praying  and 
dying,  did  insensibly  turn  the  world  into  Christian,  and  persecu- 
tion into  victory. 

For  Christ,  who  began,  and  lived,  and  died  in  sorrows,  per- 
ceiving his  own  sufferings  to  succeed  so  well,  and  that  '  for  suf- 
fering death,  he  was  crowned  with  immortality,'  resolved  to  take 
all  his  disciples  and  servants  to  the  fellowship  of  the  same 
suffering,  that  they  might  have  a  participation  of  his  glory ;  know- 
ing, God  had  opened  no  gate  of  heaven  but  the  '  narrow  gate,'  to 
which  the  cross  was  the  key.  And  since  Christ  now  being  our 
high-priest  in  heaven,  intercedes  for  us  by  representing  his  passion, 
and  the  dolours  of  the  cross,  that  even  in  glory  he  might  still 
preserve  the  mercies  of  his  past  sufferings,  for  which  the  Father 
did  so  delight  in  him ;  he  also  designs  to  present  us  to  God 
dressed  in  the  same  robe,  and  treated  in  the  same  manner,  and 
honoured  with  '  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus ; '  "  He  hath  predes- 
tinated us  to  be  conformable  to  the  image  of  his  Son."  And  if 
under  a  head  crowned  with  thorns,  we  bring  to  God  members 
circled  with  roses,  and  softness,  and  delicacy,  triumphant  mem- 
bers in  the  militant  church,  God  will  reject  us,  he  will  not  know 
us  who  are  so  unlike  our  elder  brother :  for  we  are  members  of 
the  Lamb,  not  of  the  lion  ;  and  of  Christ's  suffering  part,  not  of 
the  triumphant  part :  and  for  three  hundred  years  together  the 
church  lived  upon  blood,  and  was  nourished  with  blood ;  the 
blood  of  her  own  children.  Thirty-three  bishops  of  Rome  in 
immediate  succession  were  put  to  violent  and  unnatural  deaths ; 
and  so  were  all  the  churches  of  the  east  and  west  built ;  the  cause 


154  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

of  Christ  and  of  religion  was  advanced  by  the  sword,  but  it  was  the 
sword  of  the  persecutors,  not  of  resisters  or  warriors  :  they  were 
'  all  baptized  into  the  death  of  Christ ; '  their  very  profession  and 
institution  is  to  live  like  him,  and,  when  he  requires  it,  to  die  for 
him  •  that  is  the  very  formality,  the  life  and  essence,  of  Christian- 
ity. This,  I  say,  lasted  for  three  hundred  years,  that  the  prayers, 
and  the  backs,  and  the  necks  of  Christians  fought  against  the  rods 
and  axes  of  the  persecutors,  and  prevailed,  till  the  country,  and 
the  cities,  and  the  court  itself,  was  filled  with  Christians.  And  by 
this  time  the  army  of  martyrs  was  vast  and  numerous,  and  the 
number  of  sufferers  blunted  the  hangman's  sword.  For  Christ 
had  triumphed  over  the  princes  and  powers  of  the  world,  before 
he  would  admit  them  to  serve  him ;  he  first  felt  their  malice, 
before  he  would  make  use  of  their  defence ;  to  shew  that  it  was 
not  his  necessity  that  required  it,  but  his  grace  that  admitted  kings 
and  queens  to  be  nurses  of  the  church. 

And  now  the  church  was  at  ease,  and  she  that  sucked  the  blood 
of  the  martyrs  so  long,  began  now  to  suck  the  milk  of  queens. 
Indeed  it  was  a  great  mercy  in  appearance,  and  was  so  intended, 
but  it  proved  not  so.  But  then  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  pursuance  of 
the  design  of  Christ,  who  meant  by  suffering  to  perfect  his  church, 
as  himself  was  by  the  same  instrument,  —  was  pleased,  now  that 
persecution  did  cease,  to  inspire  the  church  with  the  Spirit  of 
mortification  and  austerity ;  and  then  they  made  colleges  of  suffer- 
ers, persons  who,  to  secure  their  inheritance  in  the  world  to  come, 
did  cut  off  all  their  portion  in  this,  excepting  so  much  of  it  as 
was  necessary  to  their  present  being;  and  by  instruments  of 
humility,  by  patience  under,  and  a  voluntary  undertaking  of,  the 
cross,  the  burden  of  the  Lord,  —  by  self-denial,  by  fastings  and 
sackcloth,  and  pernoctations 8  in  prayer,  they  chose  then  to  exer- 
cise the  active  part  of  the  religion,  mingling  it  as  much  as  they 
could  with  the  suffering. 

And  indeed  it  is  so  glorious  a  thing  to  be  like  Christ,  to  be 

8  spending  the  night. 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE.  155 

dressed  like  the  Prince  of  the  catholic  church,  who  was  '  a  man  of 
sufferings,'  and  to  whom  a  prosperous  and  unafflicted  person  is  very 
unlike,  that  in  all  ages  the  servants  of  God  have  '  put  on  the 
armour  of  righteousness,  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left :  '  that 
is,  in  the  sufferings  of  persecution,  or  the  labours  of  mortification ; 
in  patience  under  the  rod  of  God,  or  by  election  of  our  own ;  by 
toleration,  or  self-denial ;  by  actual  martyrdom,  or  by  aptness  or 
disposition  towards  it ;  by  dying  for  Christ,  or  suffering  for  him  ; 
by  being  willing  to  part  with  all  when  he  calls  for  it,  and  by  part- 
ing with  what  we  can  for  the  relief  of  his  poor  members.  For, 
know  this,  there  is  no  state  in  the  church  so  serene,  no  days  so 
prosperous,  in  which  God  does  not  give  to  his  servants  the  powers 
and  opportunities  of  suffering  for  him ;  not  only  they  that  die  for 
Christ,  but  they  that  live  according  to  his  laws,  shall  find  some 
lives  to  part  with,  and  many  ways  to  suffer  for  Christ.  To  kill  and 
crucify  the  old  man  and  all  his  lusts,  to  mortify  a  beloved  sin,  to 
fight  against  temptations,  to  do  violence  to  our  bodies,  to  live 
chastely,  to  suffer  affronts  patiently,  to  forgive  injuries  and  debts, 
to  renounce  all  prejudice  and  interest  in  religion,  and  to  choose 
our  side  for  truth's  sake  (not  because  it  is  prosperous,  but  because 
it  pleases  God),  to  be  charitable  beyond  our  power,  to  reprove 
our  betters  with  modesty  and  openness,  to  displease  men  rather 
than  God,  to  be  at  enmity  with  the  world,  that  you  may  preserve 
friendship  with  God,  to  deny  the  importunity  and  troublesome 
kindness  of  a  drinking  friend,  to  own  truth  in  despite  of  danger 
or  scorn,  to  despise  shame,  to  refuse  worldly  pleasures  when  they 
tempt  your  soul  beyond  duty  or  safety,  to  take  pains  in  the  cause 
of  religion,  the  '  labour  of  love,'  and  the  crossing  of  your  anger, 
peevishness  and  morosity :  these  are  the  daily  sufferings  of  a 
Christian;  and,  if  we  perform  them  well,  will  have  the  same 
reward,  and  an  equal  smart,  and  greater  labour,  than  the  plain 
suffering  the  hangman's  sword.  This  I  have  discoursed,  to  repre- 
sent unto  you,  that  you  cannot  be  exempted  from  the  similitude  of 
Christ's  sufferings  :  that  God  will  shut  no  age  nor  no  man  from  his 
portion  of  the  cross ;  that  we  cannot  fail  of  the  result  of  this 


156  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

predestination,  nor  without  our  own  fault  be  excluded  from  the 
covenant  of  sufferings.  '  Judgment  must  begin  at  God's  house,' 
and  enters  first  tipon  the  sons  and  heirs  of  the  kingdom ;  and  if 
it  be  not  by  the  direct  persecution  of  tyrants,  it  will  be  by  the 
direct  persecution  of  the  devil,  or  infirmities  of  our  own  flesh. 
But  because  this  was  but  the  secondary  meaning  of  the  text,  I 
return  to  make  use  of  all  the  former  discourse. 

Let  no  Christian  man  make  any  judgment  concerning  his  con- 
dition or  his  cause,  by  the  external  event  of  things.  For  although 
in  the  law  of  Moses,  God  made  with  his  people  a  covenant  of 
temporal  prosperity,  and  "  his  saints  did  bind  the  kings  of  the 
Amorites,  and  the  Philistines,  in  chains,  and  their  nobles  with 
links  of  iron,"  and  then,  that  was  the  honour  which  all  his  saints 
had :  yet,  in  Christ  Jesus,  he  made  a  covenant  of  sufferings. 
Most  of  the  graces  of  Christianity  are  suffering  graces,  and  God 
hath  predestinated  us  to  sufferings,  and  we  are  baptized  into  suf- 
fering, and  our  very  communions  are  symbols  of  our  duty,  by 
being  the  sacrament  of  Christ's  death  and  passion ;  and  Christ 
foretold  to  us  tribulation,  and  promised  only  that  he  would  be 
with  us  in  tribulation,  that  he  would  give  us  his  Spirit  to  assist  us 
at  tribunals,  and  his  grace  to  despise  the  world,  and  to  contemn 
riches,  and  boldness  to  confess  every  article  of  the  Christian" 
faith,  in  the  face  of  armies  and  armed  tyrants.  And  he  also 
promised  that  '  all  things  should  work  together  for  the  best  to  his 
servants,'  that  is,  he  would  '  out  of  the  eater  bring  meat,  and  out 
of  the  strong  issue  sweetness,'  and  crowns  and  sceptres  should 
spring  from  crosses,  and  that  the  cross  itself  should  stand  upon 
the  globes  and  sceptres  of  princes ;  but  he  never  promised  to  his 
servants,  that  they  should  pursue  kings  and  destroy  armies,  that 
they  should  reign  over  nations,  and  promote  the  cause  of  Jesus 
Christ,  by  breaking  his  commandment.  '  The  shield  of  faith,  and 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  the  armour  of  righteousness,  and  the 
weapons  of  spiritual  warfare  ; '  these  are  they  by  which  Christianity 
swelled  from  a  small  company,  and  a  less  reputation,  to  possess 
the  chairs  of  doctors,  and  the  thrones  of  princes,  and  the  hearts 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE.  157 

of  all  men.  But  men,  in  all  ages,  will  be  tampering  with  shadows 
and  toys.  The  Apostles  at  no  hand  could  endure  to  hear  that 
Christ's  '  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,'  and  that  their  Master 
should  die  a  sad  and  shameful  death ;  though,  that  way,  he  was  to 
receive  his  crown,  and  '  enter  into  glory.'  And  after  Christ's 
time,  when  his  disciples  had  taken  up  the  cross,  and  were  march- 
ing the  King's  highway  of  sorrows,  there  were  a  very  great  many, 
even  the  generality  of  Christians,  for  two  or  three  ages  together, 
who  fell  a  dreaming  that  Christ  should  come  and  reign  upon  earth 
again  for  a  thousand  years,  and  then  the  saints  should  reign  in  all 
abundance  of  temporal  power  and  fortunes  :  but  these  men  were 
content  to  stay  for  it  till  after  the  resurrection ;  in  the  meantime, 
cook  up  their  cross,  and  followed  after  their  Lord,  the  King  of 
sufferings.  But  now-a-days,  we  find  a  generation  of  men  who  have 
changed  the  covenant  of  sufferings  into  victories  and  triumphs, 
riches  and  prosperous  chances,  and  reckon  their  Christianity  by 
their  good  fortunes ;  as  if  Christ  had  promised  to  his  servants  no 
heaven  hereafter,  no  Spirit  in  the  meantime  to  refresh  their  sor- 
rows ;  as  if  he  had  enjoined  them  no  passive  graces ;  but,  as  if  to 
be  a  Christian,  and  to  be  a  Turk,  were  the  same  thing.  Mahomet 
entered  and  possessed  by  the  sword  :  Christ  came  by  the  cross, 
entered  by  humility :  and  his  saints  '  possess  their  souls  in  pa- 
tience.' 

God  was  fain  to  multiply  miracles  to  make  Christ  capable  of 
being  a  '  man  of  sorrows : '  and  shall  we  think  he  will  work 
miracles  to  make  us  delicate  ?  He  promised  us  a  glorious  portion 
hereafter,  to  which  if  all  the  sufferings  of  the  world  were  put  to- 
gether, they  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared ;  and  shall  we,  with 
Dives,  choose  our  portion  of  '  good  things  in  this  life  ? '  If  Christ 
suffered  so  many  things  only  that  he  might  give  us  glory,  shall  it 
be  strange  that  we  shall  suffer  who  are  to  receive  his  glory  ?  It  is 
in  vain  to  think  we  shall  obtain  glories  at  an  easier  rate,  than  to 
drink  of  the  brook  in  the  way  in  which  Christ  was  drenched. 
When  the  devil  appeared  to  St.  Martin,  in  a  bright  splendid  shape, 
and  said  he  was  Christ ;  he  answered,  "  Chris tus  non  nisi  in  Cruce 


158  JEREMY   TAYLOR. 

apparet  sui's  in  hac  vita"9  And  when  St.  Ignatius  was  newly 
tied  in  a  chain  to  be  led  to  his  martyrdom,  he  cried  out,  "  Nunc 
incipio  esse  Christianas."  I0  And  it  was  observed  by  Minutius 
Felix,  and  was  indeed  a  great  and  excellent  truth,  "  Omnes  viri 
fortes,  quos  Gentiles  prcedicabant  in  exemplum,  cerumnis  sin's  in- 
dyti  floruerunt ;  "  n  '  the  Gentiles  in  their  whole  religion  never  pro- 
pounded any  man  imitable,  unless  the  man  were  poor  or  perse- 
cuted.' Brutus  stood  for  his  country's  liberty,  but  lost  his  army 
and  his  life;  Socrates  was  put  to  death  for  speaking  a  relig- 
ious truth ;  Cato  chose  to  be  on  the  right  side,  but  happened 
to  fall  upon  the  oppressed  and  the  injured ;  he  died  together  with 

his  party. 

Victrix  causa  Deis  placuit,  sed  vicla  Caloni.12 

And  if  God  thus  dealt  with  the  best  of  heathens,  to  whom  he  had 
made  no  clear  revelation  of  immortal  recompenses ;  how  little  is 
the  faith,  and  how  much  less  is  the  patience  of  Christians,  if  they 
shall  think  much  to  suffer  sorrow,  since  they  so  clearly  see  with  the 
eye  of  faith  the  great  things  which  are  laid  up  for  them  that  are 
'  faithful  unto  the  death  ? '  Faith  is  useless,  if  now  in  the  midst  of 
so  great  pretended  lights,  we  shall  not  dare  to  trust  God,  unless  we 
have  all  in  hand  that  we  desire ;  and  suffer  nothing,  for  all  we  can 
hope  for.  They  that  live  by  sense,  have  no  use  of  faith  :  yet,  our 
Lord  Jesus,  concerning  whose  passions  the  Gospel  speaks  much, 
but  little  of  his  glorifications ;  whose  shame  was  public,  whose 
pains  were  notorious,  but  his  joys  and  transfigurations  were  secret, 
and  kept  private ;  he  who  would  not  suffer  his  holy  mother,  whom 
in  great  degrees  he  exempted  from  sin,  —  to  be  exempted  from 
many  and  great  sorrows,  certainly  intends  to  admit  none  to  his 
resurrection  but  by  the  doors  of  his  grave,  none  to  glory  but  by 

9  Christ  does  not  appear  to  his  own  in  this  life  except  on  the  cross. 

10  Now  I  begin  to  be  a  Christian. 

11  All  the  brave  men  whom  the  Gentiles  put  forward  as  an  example  were 
celebrated  for  their  sufferings. 

12  The  victorious  cause  pleased  the  gods,  but  the  vanquished,  Cato.  —  LUCAN, 
fharsalia,  I.  128. 


SERMONS  PREACHED  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE.  159 

the  way  of  the  cross.  "  If  we  be  planted  into  the  likeness  of  his 
death,  we  shall  be  also  of  his  resurrection ;  "  else  on  no  terms. 
Christ  took  away  sin  from  us,  but  he  left  us  our  share  of  suf- 
ferings ;  and  the  cross,  which  was  first  printed  upon  us,  in  the 
waters  of  baptism,  must  for  ever  be  born[e]  by  us  in  penance,  in 
mortification,  in  self-denial,  and  in  martyrdom,  and  toleration, 
according  as  God  shall  require  of  us  by  the  changes  of  the  world, 
and  the  condition  of  the  church. 

For  Christ  considers  nothing  but  souls,  he  values  not  their 
estates  or  bodies,  supplying  our  want  by  his  providence  ;  and  we 
are  secured  that  our  bodies  may  be  killed,  but  cannot  perish,  so 
long  as  we  preserve  our  duty  and  our  consciences. 

Christ,  our  captain,  hangs  naked  upon  the  cross ;  our  fellow- 
soldiers  are  cast  into  prison,  torn  with  lions,  rent  in  sunder  with  trees 
returning  from  their  violent  bendings,  broken  upon  wheels,  roasted 
upon  gridirons,  and  have  had  the  honour  not  only  to  have  a  good 
cause,  but  also  to  suffer  for  it ;  and  by  faith,  not  by  armies,  —  by 
patience,  not  by  fighting,  have  overcome  the  world.  "  Et  sit  anima 
mea  cum  Chris  tianis  ;  "  "I  pray  God  my  soul  may  be  among  the 
Christians."  And  yet  the  Turks  have  prevailed  upon  a  great  part 
of  the  Christian  world,  and  have  made  them  slaves  and  tributaries, 
and  do  them  all  spite,  and  are  hugely  prosperous  :  but  when 
Christians  are  so,  then  they  are  tempted  and  put  in  danger,  and 
never  have  their  duty  and  their  interest  so  well  secured,  as  when 
they  lose  all  for  Christ,  and  are  adorned  with  wounds  or  poverty, 
change  or  scorn,  affronts  or  revilings,  which  are  obelisks  and  tri- 
umphs of  a  holy  cause.  Evil  men  and  evil  causes  had  need  have . 
good  fortune  and  great  success  to  support  their  persons  and  their 
pretences ;  for  nothing  but  innocence  and  Christianity  can  flourish 
in  a  persecution.  I  sum  up  this  first  discourse  in  a  word  :  in  all 
the  Scripture,  and  in  all  the  authentic  stories  of  the  church,  we 
find  it  often  that  the  devil  appeared  in  the  shape  of  an  '  angel  of 
light,'  but  was  never  suffered  so  much  as  to  counterfeit  a  per- 
secuted sufferer.  Say  no  more,  therefore,  as  the  murmuring 
Israelites  said, '  If  the  Lord  be  with  us,  why  have  these  evils  appre- 


160  JEREMY  TAYLOR. 

bended  us  ? '  for  if  to  be  afflicted  be  a  sign  that  God  hath  forsaken 
a  man,  and  refuses  to  own  his  religion  or  his  question,  then  he  that 
oppresses  the  widow,  and  murders  the  innocent,  and  puts  the 
fatherless  to  death,  and  follows  Providence  by  doing  all  the  evils 
that  he  can,  that  is,  all  that  God  suffers  him,  he,  I  say,  is  the  only 
saint  and  servant  of  God :  and  upon  the  same  ground,  the  wolf 
and  the  fox  may  boast,  when  they  scatter  and  devour  a  flock  of 
lambs  and  harmless  sheep. 


IX. 

SIR   THOMAS    BROWNE. 

(1605-1682.) 

URN-BURIAL   (HYDRfOTAPHIA). 

[Written  about  1658.] 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CHRISTIANS  have  handsomely  glossed  the  deformity  of  death  by 
careful  consideration  of  the  body,  and  civil  rites  which  take  off 
brutal  terminations  :  and  though  they  conceived  all  reparable  by  a 
resurrection,  cast  not  off  all  care  of  interment.  And  since  the 
ashes  of  sacrifices  burnt  upon  the  altar  of  God  were  carefully 
carried  out  by  the  priests,  and  deposed  in  a  clean  field ;  since  they 
acknowledged  their  bodies  to  be  the  lodging  of  Christ,  and  tem- 
ples of  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  devolved  not  all  upon  the  sufficiency 
of  soul- existence ;  and  therefore  with  long  services  and  full 
solemnities,  concluded  their  last  exequies,  wherein  to  all  distinc- 
tions the  Greek  devotion  seems  most  pathetically  ceremonious. 

Christian  invention  hath  chiefly  driven  at  rites,  which  speak 
hopes  of  another  life,,  and  hints  of  a  resurrection.  And  if  the 
ancient  Gentiles  held  not  the  immortality  of  their  better  part,  and 
some  subsistence  after  death,  in  several  rites,  customs,  actions,  and 
expressions,  they  contradicted  their  own  opinions  :  wherein  De- 
mocritus  went  high,  even  to  the  thought  of  a  resurrection,  as 
scoffingly  recorded  by  Pliny.  What  can  be  more  express  than  the 
expression  of  Phocylides?  Or  who  would  expect  from  Lucretius 
a  sentence  of  Ecclesiastes  ?  Before  Plato  could  speak,  the  soul 
had  wings  in  Homer,  which  fell  not,  but  flew  out  of  the  body  into 
the  mansions  of  the  dead ;  who  also  observed  that  handsome  dis- 

161 


162  S/Jf  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

tinction  of  Demas1  and  Soma,2  for  the  body  conjoined  to  the  soul, 
and  body  separated  from  it.  Lucian  spoke  much  truth  in  jest, 
when  he  said  that  part  of  Hercules  which  proceeded  from  Alc- 
mena  perished,  that  from  Jupiter  remained  immortal.  Thus  Socrates 
was  content  that  his  friends  should  bury  his  body,  so  they  would 
not  think  they  buried  Socrates  ;  and,  regarding  only  his  immortal 
part,  was  indifferent  to  be  burnt  or  buried.  From  such  considera- 
tions, Diogenes  might  contemn  sepulture,  and,  being  satisfied  that 
the  soul  could  not  perish,  grow  careless  of  corporal  interment. 
The  Stoicks,  who  thought  the  souls  of  wise  men  had  their  habita- 
tion about  the  moon,  might  make  slight  account  of  subterraneous 
deposition;  whereas  the  Pythagoreans  and  transcorporating  phi- 
losophers,3 who  were  to  be  often  buried,  held  great  care  of  their 
interment.  And  the  Platonicks  rejected  not  a  due  care  of  the 
grave,  though  they  put  their  ashes  to  unreasonable  expectations,  in 
their  tedious  term  of  return  and  long  set  revolution. 

Men  have  lost  their  reason  in  nothing  so  much  as  their  religion, 
wherein  stones  and  clouts  make  martyrs ;  and  since  the  religion  of 
one  seems  madness  unto  another,  to  afford  an  account  or  rational 
of  old  rites  requires  no  rigid  reader.  That  they  kindled  the  pyre 
aversely,  or  turning  their  face  from  it,  was  an  handsome  symbol  of 
unwilling  ministration.  That  they  washed  their  bones  with  wine 
and  milk  ;  that  the  mother  wrapped  them  in  linen,  and  dried  them 
in  her  bosom,  the  first  fostering  part  and  place  of  their  nourish- 
ment; that  they  opened  their  eyes  towards  heaven  before  they 
kindled  the  fire,  as  the  place  of  their  hopes  or  original,  were  no 
improper  ceremonies.  Their  last  valediction,  thrice  uttered  by 
the  attendants,  was  also  very  solemn,  and  somewhat  answered  by 
Christians,  who  thought  it  too  little,  if  they  threw  not  the  earth 
thrice  upon  the  interred  body.  That,  in  strewing  their  tombs,  the 
Romans  affected  the  rose ;  the  Greeks,  amaranthus  and  myrtle  : 
that  the  funeral  pyre  consisted  of  sweet  fuel,  cypress,  fir,  larix,4  yew, 

1  living  body.  2  corpse. 

8  Those  who  held  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls. 
*  larch. 


URN-BURIAL  {HYDRIOTAPHIA).  163 

and  trees  perpetually  verdant,  lay  silent  expressions  of  their 
surviving  hopes.  Wherein  Christians,  who  deck  their  coffins  with 
bays,  have  found  a  more  elegant  emblem,  for  that  it,  seeming 
dead,  will  restore  itself  from  the  root,  and  its  dry  and  exsuccous 5 
leaves  resume  their  verdure  again ;  which,  if  we  mistake  not,  we 
have  also  observed  in  furze.  Whether  the  planting  of  yew  in 
churchyards  hold  not  its  original  from  ancient  funeral  rites,  or  as 
an  emblem  of  resurrection,  from  its  perpetual  verdure,  may  also 
admit  conjecture. 

They  made  use  of  music  to  excite  or  quiet  the  affections  of  their 
friends,  according  to  different  harmonies.  But  the  secret  and 
symbolical  hint  was  the  harmonical  nature  of  the  soul ;  which, 
delivered  from  the  body,  went  again  to  enjoy  the  primitive  har- 
mony of  heaven,  from  whence  it  first  descended  ;  which,  according 
to  its  progress  traced  by  antiquity,  came  down  by  Cancer,  and 
ascended  by  Capricornus. 

They  burnt  not  children  before  their  teeth  appeared,  as  appre- 
hending their  bodies  too  tender  a  morsel  for  fire,  and  that  their 
gristly  bones  would  scarce  leave  separable  relics  after  the  pyral  » 
combustion.  That  they  kindled  not  fire  in  their  houses  for  some 
days  after  was  a  strict  memorial  of  the  late  afflicting  fire.  And 
mourning  without  hope,  they  had  an  happy  fraud  against  excessive 
lamentation,  by  a  common  opinion  that  deep  sorrows  disturb  their 
ghosts. 

That  they  buried  their  dead  on  their  backs,  or  in  a  supine 
position,  seems  agreeable  unto  profound  sleep,  and  common 
posture  of  dying,  contrary  to  the  most  natural  way  of  birth  ;  nor 
unlike  our  pendulous  posture,  in  the  doubtful  state  of  the  womb. 
Diogenes  was  singular,  who  preferred  a  prone  situation  in  the 
grave ;  and  some  Christians  like  neither,  who  decline  the  figure  of 
rest,  and  make  choice  of  an  erect  posture. 

That  they  carried  them  out  of  the  world  with  their  feet  forward,8 
not  inconsonant  unto  reason,  as  contrary  unto  the  native  posture 

6  sapless.  6  [was.] 


164  SfJ?  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

of  man,  and  his  production  first  into  it ;  and  also  agreeable  unto 
their  opinions,  while  they  bid  adieu  unto  the  world,  not  to  look 
again  upon  it;  whereas  Mahometans  who  think  to  return  to  a 
delightful  life  again,  are  carried  forth  with  their  heads  forward,  and 
looking  toward  their  houses. 

They  closed  their  eyes,  as  parts  which  first  die,  or  first  discover 
the  sad  effects  of  death.  But  their  iterated  clamations  to  excitate 
their  dying  or  dead  friends,  or  revoke  them  unto  life  again,  was  a 
vanity  of  affection,  as  not  presumably  ignorant  of  the  critical  tests 
of  death,  by  apposition  of  feathers,  glasses,  and  reflection  of 
figures,  which  dead  eyes  represent  not :  which,  however  not 
strictly  verifiable  in  fresh  and  warm  cadavers,  could  hardly  elude 
the  test  in  corpses  of  four  or  five  days. 

That  they  sucked  in  the  last  breath  of  their  expiring  friends, 
was  surely  a  practice  of  no  medical  institution,  but  a  loose  opinion 
that  the  soul  passed  out  that  way,  and  a  fondness  of  affection, 
from  some  Pythagorical  foundation  that  the  spirit  of  one  body 
passed  into  another,  which  they  wished  might  be  their  own. 

That  they  poured  oil  upon  the  pyre,  was  a  tolerable  practice, 
while  the  intention  rested  in  facilitating  the  accension.  But  to 
place  good  omens  in  the  quick  and  speedy  burning,  to  sacrifice 
unto  the  winds  for  a  dispatch  in  this  office,  was  a  low  form  of 
superstition. 

The  archimime,  or  jester,  attending  the  funeral  train,  and  imi- 
tating the  speeches,  gestures,  and  manners  of  the  deceased,  was 
too  light  for  such  solemnities,  contradicting  their  funeral  orations 
and  doleful  rites  of  the  grave. 

That  they  buried  a  piece  of  money  with  them  as  a  fee  of  the 
Elysian  ferryman,  was  a  practice  full  of  folly.  But  the  ancient 
custom  of  placing  coins  in  considerable  urns,  and  the  present 
practice  of  burying  medals  in  the  noble  foundations  of  Europe, 
are  laudable  ways  of  historical  discoveries,  in  actions,  persons, 
chronologies ;  and  posterity  will  applaud  them. 

We  examine  not  the  old  laws  of  sepulture,  exempting  certain 
persons  from  burial  or  burning.  But  hereby  we  apprehend  that 


URN-BURIAL  (HYDRIOTAPHIA).  165 

these  were  not  the  bones  of  persons  planet-struck  or  burnt  with 
fire  from  heaven  ;  no  relicks  of  traitors  to  their  country,  self-killers, 
or  sacrilegious  malefactors  ;  persons  in  old  apprehension  unworthy 
of  the  earth  ;  condemned  unto  the  Tartarus  of  hell,  and  bottomless 
pit  of  Pluto,  from  whence  there  was  no  redemption. 

Nor  were  only  many  customs  questionable  in  order  to  their 
obsequies,  but  also  sundry  practices,  fictions,  and  conceptions, 
discordant  or  obscure,  of  their  state  and  future  beings.  Whether 
unto  eight  or  ten  bodies  of  men  to  add  one  of  a  woman,  as  being 
more  inflammable  and  unctuously  constituted  for  the  better  pyral 
combustion,  were  any  rational  practice  ;  or  whether  the  complaint 
of  Periander's  wife  be  tolerable,  that  wanting  her  funeral  burning, 
she  suffered  intolerable  cold  in  hell,  according  to  the  constitution 
of  the  infernal  house  of  Pluto,  wherein  cold  makes  a  great  part  of 
their  tortures  ;  it  cannot  pass  without  some  question. 

Why  the  female  ghosts  appear  unto  Ulysses,  before  the  heroes 
and  masculine  spirits,  —  why  the  Psyche  or  soul  of  Tiresias 7  is  of 
the  masculine  gender,  who,  being  blind  on  earth,  sees  more  than 
all  the  rest  in  hell ;  why  the  funeral  suppers  consisted  of  eggs, 
beans,  smallage,  and  lettuce,  since  the  dead  are  made  to  eat 
asphodels  about  the  Elysian  meadows,  —  why,  since  there  is  no 
sacrifice  acceptable,  nor  any  propitiation  for  the  covenant  of  the 
grave,  men  set  up  the  deity  of  Morta,  and  fruitlessly  adored 
divinities  without  ears,  it  cannot  escape  some  doubt. 

The  dead  seem  all  alive  in  the  human  Hades  of  Homer,  yet 
cannot  well  speak,  prophesy,  or  know  the  living,  except  they  drink 
blood,  wherein  is  the  life  of  man.  And  therefore  the  souls  of 
Penelope's  paramours,  conducted  by  Mercury,  chirped  like  bats, 
and  those  which  followed  Hercules,  made  a  noise  but  like  a  flock 
of  birds. 

The  departed  spirits  know  things  past  and  to  come ;  yet  are 
ignorant  of  things  present.  Agamemnon  foretells  what  should 
happen  unto  Ulysses,  yet  ignorantly  inquires  what  is  become  of 

7  HOMER,  Odyssey,  XI.  90,  91. 


166  SIX  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

his  own  son.  The  ghosts  are  afraid  of  swords  in  Homer ;  yet 
Sibylla  tells  ^Eneas  in  Virgil,  the  thin  habit  of  spirits  was  beyond 
the  force  of  weapons.  The  spirits  put  off  their  malice  with  their 
bodies,  and  Csesar  and  Pompey  accord  in  Latin  hell :  yet  Ajax,  in 
Homer,  endures  not  a  conference  with  Ulysses  :  and  Deiphobus 
appears  all  mangled  in  Virgil's  ghosts,  yet  we  meet  with  perfect 
shadows  among  the  wounded  ghosts  of  Homer. 

Since  Charon  in  Lucian  applauds  his  condition  among  the  dead, 
whether  it  be  handsomely  said  of  Achilles,  that  living  contemner 
of  death,  that  he  had  rather  be  a  ploughman's  servant  than  em- 
peror of  the  dead?  How  Hercules  his  soul  is  in  hell,  and  yet 
in  heaven ;  and  Julius  his  soul  in  a  star,  yet  seen  by  ^Eneas  in 
hell  ?  —  except  the  ghosts  were  but  images  and  shadows  of  the 
soul,  received  in  higher  mansions,  according  to  the  ancient  divis- 
ion of  body,  soul,  and  image,  or  simulachrum,  of  them  both.  The 
particulars  of  future  beings  must  needs  be  dark  unto  ancient 
theories,  which  Christian  philosophy  yet  determines  but  in  a 
cloud  of  opinions.  A  dialogue  between  two  infants  in  the  womb 
concerning  the  state  of  this  world,8  might  handsomely  illustrate 
our  ignorance  of  the  next,  whereof  methinks  we  yet  discourse 
in  Plato's  den,  and  are  but  embryo  philosophers. 

Pythagoras  escapes  in  the  fabulous  hell  of  Dante,  among  that 
swarm  of  philosophers,  wherein,  whilst  we  meet  with  Plato  and 
Socrates,  Cato  is  to  be  found  in  no  lower  place  than  purgatory. 
Among  all  the  set,  Epicurus  is  most  considerable,  whom  men 
make  honest  without  an  Elysium,  who  contemned  life  without 
encouragement  of  immortality,  and  making  nothing  after  death, 
yet  made  nothing  of  the  king  of  terrors. 

Were  the  happiness  of  the  next  world  as  closely  apprehended 
as  the  felicities  of  this,  it  were  a  martyrdom  to  live ;  and  unto 
such  as  consider  none  hereafter,  it  must  be  more  than  death  to 
die,  which  makes  us  amazed  at  those  audacities  that  durst  be 

8  WILKIN  states  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne  "  actually  did  write  such  a  dia- 
logue," but  he  had  searched  in  vain  for  it. 


URN-BURIAL  (HYDRIOTAPHIA).  167 

nothing  and  return  into  their  chaos  again.  Certainly  such  spirits 
as  could  contemn  death,  when  they  expected  no  better  being 
after,  would  have  scorned  to  live,  had  they  known  any.  And 
therefore  we  applaud  not  the  judgment  of  Machiavel,  that  Chris- 
tianity makes  men  cowards,  or  that  with  the  confidence  of  but 
half-dying,  the  despised  virtues  of  patience  and  humility  have 
abased  the  spirits  of  men,  which  Pagan  principles  exalted ;  but 
rather  regulated  the  wildness  of  audacities,  in  the  attempts, 
grounds,  and  eternal  sequels  of  death ;  wherein  men  of  the  boldest 
spirits  are  often  prodigiously  temerarious. 9  Nor  can  we  extenuate 
the  valor  of  ancient  martrys,  who  contemned  death  in  the  uncom- 
fortable scene  of  their  lives,  and  in  their  decrepit  martyrdoms  did 
probably  lose  not  many  months  of  their  days,  or  parted  with  life 
when  it  was  scarce  worth  the  living.  For  (beside  that  long  time 
past  holds  no  consideration  unto  a  slender  time  to  come)  they 
had  no  small  disadvantage  from  the  constitution  of  old  age,  which 
naturally  makes  men  fearful,  and  complexionally  superannuated 
from  the  bold  and  courageous  thoughts  of  youth  and  fervent 
years.  But  the  contempt  of  death  from  corporal  animosity10  pro- 
moteth  not  our  felicity.  They  may  sit  in  the  orchestra,  and 
noblest  seats  of  heaven,  who  have  held  up  shaking  hands  in  the 
fire,  and  humanly  contended  for  glory. 

Meanwhile  Epicurus  lies  deep  in  Dante's  hell,  wherein  we  meet 
with  tombs  enclosing  souls  which  denied  their  immortalities. 
But  whether  the  virtuous  heathen,  who  lived  better  than  he  spake, 
or  erring  in  the  principles  of  himself,  yet  lived  above  philosophers 
of  more  specious  maxims,  lie  so  deep  as  he  is  placed,  at  least  so 
low  as  not  to  rise  against  Christians,  who,  believing  or  knowing 
that  truth,  have  lastingly  denied  it  in  their  practice  and  conversa- 
tion —  were  a  query  too  sad  to  insist  on. 

But  all  or  most  apprehensions  rested  in  opinions  of  some  future 
being,  which,  ignorantly  or  coldly  believed,  begat  those  perverted 
conceptions,  ceremonies,  sayings,  which  Christians  pity  or  laugh 

9  rash.  10  physical  courage. 


168  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

at.  Happy  are  they  which  live  not  in  that  disadvantage  of  time, 
when  men  could  say  little  for  futurity,  but  from  reason  :  whereby 
the  noblest  minds  fell  often  upon  doubtful  deaths,  and  melancholy 
dissolutions.  With  these  hopes,  Socrates  warmed  his  doubtful 
spirits  against  that  cold  potion ;  and  Cato,  before  he  durst  give 
the  fatal  stroke,  spent  part  of  the  night  in  reading  the  Immortality 
of  Plato,  thereby  confirming  his  wavering  hand  unto  the  animosity 
of  that  attempt. 

It  is  the  heaviest  stone  that  melancholy  can  throw  at  a  man,  to 
tell  him  he  is  at  the  end  of  his  nature ;  or  that  there  is  no  further 
state  to  come,  unto  which  this  seems  progressional,  and  otherwise 
made  in  vain.  Without  this  accomplishment,  the  natural  expec- 
tation and  desire  of  such  a  state,  were  but  a  fallacy  in  nature  ; 
unsatisfied  considerators  would  quarrel  the  justice  of  their  consti- 
tutions, and  rest  content  that  Adam  had  fallen  lower ;  whereby,  by 
knowing  no  other  original,  and  deeper  ignorance  of  themselves, 
they  might  have  enjoyed  the  happiness  of  inferior  creatures,  who 
in  tranquillity  possess  their  constitutions,  as  having  not  the 
apprehension  to  deplore  their  own  natures,  and,  being  framed 
below  the  circumference  of  these  hopes,  or  cognition  of  better 
being,  the  wisdom  of  God  hath  necessitated  their  contentment : 
but  the  superior  ingredient  and  obscured  part  of  ourselves, 
whereto  all  present  felicities  afford  no  resting  contentment,  will 
be  able  at  last  to  tell  us,  we  are  more  than  our  present  selves,  and 
evacuate11  such  hopes  in  the  fruition  of  their  own  accomplish- 
ments. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Now  since  these  dead  bones"  have  already  out-lasted  the  living 
ones  of  Methuselah,  and  in  a  yard  under  ground,  and  thin  walls 
of  clay,  out-worn  all  the  strong  and  specious  buildings  above  it ; 
and  quietly  rested  under  the  drums  and  trampling  of  three 

11  make  void. 


URN-BURIAL  {HYDRIOTAPHIA}.  169 

conquests  :  what  prince  can  promise  such  diuturnity I2  unto  his 
relics,  or  might  not  gladly  say, 

Sic  ego  componi,  versus  in  ossa,  velim  ?w 

Time,  which  antiquates  antiquities,  and  hath  an  art  to  make  dust 
of  all  things,  hath  yet  spared  these  minor  monuments. 

In  vain  we  hope  to  be  known  by  open  and  visible  conservatories, 
when  to  be  unknown  was  the  means  of  their  continuation,  and 
obscurity  their  protection.  If  they  died  by  violent  hands,  and 
were  thrust  into  their  urns,  these  bones  become  considerable,  and 
some  old  philosophers  would  honor  them,  whose  souls  they  con- 
ceived most  pure,  which  were  thus  snatched  from  their  bodies, 
and  to  retain  a  stronger  propension  unto  them ;  whereas  they 
weariedly  left  a  languishing  corpse,  and  with  faint  desires  of  re- 
union. If  they  fell  by  long  and  aged  decay,  yet  wrapt  up  in  the 
bundle  of  time,  they  fall  into  indistinction,  and  make  but  one  blot 
with  infants.  If  we  begin  to  die  when  we  live,  and  long  life  be  but 
a  prolongation  of  death,  our  life  is  a  sad  composition  ;  we  live  with 
death,  and  die  not  in  a  moment.  How  many  pulses  made  up  the 
life  of  Methuselah,  were  work  for  Archimedes  :  common  counters 
sum  up  the  life  of  Moses  his  man.  Our  days  become  considerable, 
like  petty  sums,  by  minute  accumulations ;  where  numerous 
fractions  make  up  but  small  round  numbers ;  and  our  days  of  a 
span  long,  make  not  one  little  finger. 

If  the  nearness  of  our  last  necessity  brought  a  nearer  conformity 
into  it,  there  were  a  happiness  in  hoary  hairs,  and  no  calamity  in 
half-senses.  But  the  long  habit  of  living  indisposeth  us  for  dying  • 
when  avarice  makes  us  the  sport  of  death,  when  even  David 
grew  politickly  cruel,  and  Solomon  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  the 
wisest  of  men.  But  many  are  too  early  old,  and  before  the  date 
of  age.  Adversity  stretcheth  our  days,  misery  makes  Alcmena's 

12  long  existence. 

18  Thus  I  should  wish  to  be  buried,  when  changed  to  bones.  —  TIBULLUS,  III. 
2,  26. 


170  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

nights,14  and  time  hath  no  wings  unto  it.  But  the  most  tedious 
being  is  that  which  can  unwish  itself,  content  to  be  nothing,  or 
never  to  have  been,  which  was  beyond  the  malcontent  of  Job, 
who  cursed  not  the  day  of  his  life,  but  his  nativity ;  content  to 
have  so  far  been,  as  to  have  a  title  to  future  being,  although  he 
had  lived  here  but  in  an  hidden  state  of  life,  and  as  it  were  an 
abortion. 

What  song  the  Syrens  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  assumed 
when  he  hid  himself  among  women,  though  puzzling  questions,15 
are  not  beyond  all  conjecture.  What  time  the  persons  of  these 
ossuaries  entered  the  famous  nations  of  the  dead,  and  slept  with 
princes  and  counsellors,  might  admit  a  wide  solution.  But  who 
were  the  proprietaries  of  these  bones,  or  what  bodies  these  ashes 
made  up,  were  a  question  above  antiquarism ;  not  to  be  resolved 
by  man,  nor  easily  perhaps  by  spirits,  except  we  consult  the  pro- 
vincial guardians,  or  tutelary  observators.  Had  they  made  as 
good  provision  for  their  names,  as  they  have  done  for  their  relics, 
they  had  not  so  grossly  erred  in  the  art  of  perpetuation.  But  to 
subsist  in  bones,  and  be  but  pyramidally  extant,  is  a  fallacy  in 
duration.  Vain  ashes  which  in  the  oblivion  of  names,  persons, 
times,  and  sexes,  have  found  unto  themselves  a  fruitless  contin- 
uation, and  only  rise  unto  late  posterity,  as  emblems  of  mortal 
vanities,  antidotes  against  pride,  vain-glory,  and  madding  vices. 
Pagan  vain-glories  which  thought  the  world  might  last  forever,  had 
encouragement  for  ambition;  and,  finding  no  atropos™  unto  the 
immortality  of  their  names,  were  never  dampt  with  the  necessity 
of  oblivion.  Even  old  ambitions  had  the  advantage  of  ours,  in 
the  attempts  of  their  vain-glories,  who  acting  early,  and  before 
the  probable  meridian  of  time,  have  by  this  time  found  great 
accomplishment  of  their  designs,  whereby  the  ancient  heroes  have 
already  out-lasted  their  monuments,  and  mechanical  preservations. 

14  "  One  night  as  long  as  three."  —  WILKIN. 

15  "  The  puzzling  questions  of  Tiberius  unto  grammarians.     Marcel.  Dona- 
tus  in  Suet"  —  WILKIN. 

16  One  of  the  Fates,  whose  office  was  to  cut  the  thread  of  life. 


URN-BURIAL  {HYDRIOTAPHIA).  171 

But  in  this  latter  scene  of  time,  we  cannot  expect  such  mummies 
unto  our  memories,  when  ambition  may  fear  the  prophecy  of 
Elias,  and  Charles  the  Fifth  can  never  hope  to  live  within  two 
Methuselahs  of  Hector. 

And  therefore,  restless  inquietude  for  the  diuturnity  of  our 
memories  unto  present  considerations  seems  a  vanity  almost  out 
of  date,  and  superannuated  piece  of  folly.  We  cannot  hope  to 
live  so  long  in  our  names,  as  some  have  done  in  their  persons. 
One  face  of  Janus  holds  no  proportion  unto  the  other.  Tis  too 
late  to  be  ambitious.  The  great  mutations  of  the  world  are 
acted,  or  time  may  be  too  short  for  our  designs.  To  extend  our 
memories  by  monuments,  whose  death  we  daily  pray  for,  and 
whose  duration  we  cannot  hope,  without  injury  to  our  expectations 
in  the  advent  of  the  last  day,  were  a  contradiction  to  our  beliefs. 
We  whose  generations  are  ordained  in  this  setting  part  of  time, 
are  providentially  taken  off  from  such  imaginations ;  and,  being 
necessitated  to  eye  the  remaining  particle  of  futurity  are  natu- 
rally constituted  unto  thoughts  of  the  next  world,  and  .cannot 
excusably  decline  the  consideration  of  that  duration,  which  maketh 
pyramids  pillars  of  snow,  and  all  that's  past  a  moment. 

Circles  and  right  lines  limit  and  close  all  bodies,  and  the  mortal 
right-lined  circle,17  must  conclude  and  shut  up  all.  There  is  no 
antidote  against  the  opium  of  time,  which  temporally  considereth 
all  things  :  our  fathers  find  their  graves  in  our  short  memories,  and 
sadly  tell  us  how  we  may  be  buried  in  our  survivors.  Grave-stones 
tell  truth  scarce  forty  years.  Generations  pass  while  some  trees 
stand,  and  old  families  last  not  three  oaks.  To  be  read  by  bare 
inscriptions  like  many  in  Gruter,18  to  hope  for  eternity  by  enigmat- 
ical epithets  or  first  letters  of  our  names,  to  be  studied  by  anti- 
quaries, who  we  were,  and  have  new  names  given  us  like  many  of 
the  mummies,  are  cold  consolations  unto  the  students  of  perpe- 
tuity, even  by  everlasting  languages. 

17  "The  character  of  death." — WILKIN. 

18  Gruter's  "  Ancient  Inscriptions." 


172  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

To  be  content  that  times  to  come  should  only  know  there  was 
such  a  man,  not  caring  whether  they  knew  more  of  him,  was  a 
frigid  ambition  in  Cardan ;  disparaging  his  horoscopal  inclination 
and  judgment  of  himself.  Who  cares  to  subsist  like  Hippocrates's 
patients,  or  Achilles's  horses  in  Homer,  under  naked  nominations, 
without  deserts  and  noble  acts,  which  are  the  balsam  of  our 
memories,  the  entelechia 19  and  soul  of  our  subsistences  ?  To  be 
nameless  in  worthy  deeds,  exceeds  an  infamous  history.  The 
Canaanitish  woman  lives  more  happily  without  a  name,  than 
Herodias  with  one.  And  who  had  not  rather  have  been  the 
good  thief  than  Pilate? 

But  the  iniquity  of  oblivion  blindly  scattereth  her  poppy,  and 
deals  with  the  memory  of  men  without  distinction  to  merit  of 
perpetuity.  Who  can  but  pity  the  founder  of  the  pyramids? 
Herostratus  lives  that  burnt  the  temple  of  Diana,  he  is  almost 
lost  that  built  it.  Time  hath  spared  the  epitaph  of  Adrian's  horse, 
confounded  that  of  himself.  In  vain  we  compute  our  felicities  by 
the  advantage  of  our  good  names,  since  bad  have  equal  durations, 
and  Thersites  is  like  to  live  as  long  as  Agamemnon.  Who  knows 
whether  the  best  of  men  be  known,  or  whether  there  be  not  more 
remarkable  persons  forgot,  than  any  that  stand  remembered  in  the 
known  account  of  time?  Without  the  favor  of  the  everlasting 
register,  the  first  man  had  been  as  unknown  as  the  last,  and 
Methuselah's  long  life  had  been  his  only  chronicle. 

Oblivion  is  not  to  be  hired.  The  greater  part  must  be  content 
to  be  as  though  they  had  not  been,  to  be  found  in  the  register  of 
God,  not  in  the  record  of  man.  Twenty-seven  names  make  up 
the  first  story  before  the  flood,  and  the  recorded  names  ever  since 
.  contain  not  one  living  century.  The  number  of  the  dead  long 
exceedeth  all  that  shall  live.  The  night  of  time  far  surpasseth 
the  day,  and  who  knows  when  was  the  equinox?  Every  hour 
adds  unto  that  current  arithmetick,  which  scarce  stands  one 

19  A  word  used  by  Aristotle  of  the  soul  as  the  entelechia  of  the  body,  that 
by  which  the  body  actually  exists. 


URN-BURIAL  (HYDRIOTAPmA).  173 

moment.  And  since  death  must  be  the  Lucina  of  life,  and  even 
Pagans  could  doubt,  whether  thus  to  live  were  to  die ;  since  our 
longest  sun  sets  at  right  descensions,  and  makes  but  winter  arches, 
and  therefore  it  cannot  be  long  before  we  lie  down  in  darkness, 
and  have  our  light  in  ashes;  since  the  brother  of  death20  daily 
haunts  us  with  dying  mementos,  and  time  that  grows  old  in  itself, 
bids  us  hope  no  long  duration ;  —  diuturnity  is  a  dream  and  folly 
of  expectation. 

Darkness  and  light  divide  the  course  of  time,  and  oblivion 
shares  with  memory  a  great  part  even  of  our  living  beings ;  we 
slightly  remember  our  felicities,  and  the  smartest  strokes  of  afflic- 
tion leave  but  short  smart  upon  us.  Sense  endureth  no  extrem- 
ities, and  sorrows  destroy  us  or  themselves.  To  weep  into  stones 
are  fables.  Afflictions  induce  callosities ;  miseries  are  slippery, 
or  fall  like  snow  upon  us,  which  notwithstanding  is  no  unhappy 
stupidity.  To  be  ignorant  of  evils  to  come,  and  forgetful  of  evils 
past,  is  a  merciful  provision  in  nature,  whereby  we  digest  the 
mixture  of  our  few  and  evil  days,  and  our  delivered  senses  not 
relapsing  into  cutting  remembrances,  our  sorrows  are  not  kept 
raw  by  the  edge  of  repetitions.  A  great  part  of  antiquity  con- 
tented their  hopes  of  subsistency  with  a  transmigration  of  their 
souls,  —  a  good  way  to  continue  their  memories,  while  having  the 
advantage  of  plural  successions,  they  could  not  but  act  something 
remarkable  in  such  variety  of  beings,  and  enjoying  the  fame  of 
their  passed  selves,  make  accumulation  of  glory  unto  their  last 
durations.  Others,  rather  than  be  lost  in  the  uncomfortable 
night  of  nothing,  were  content  to  recede  into  the  common  being, 
and  make  one  particle  of  the  public  soul  of  all  things,  which  was 
no  more  than  to  return  into  their  unknown  and  divine  original 
again.  Egyptian  ingenuity  was  more  unsatisfied,  contriving  their 
bodies  in  sweet  consistencies,  to  attend  the  return  of  their  souls. 

20  Sleep,  often  so  called  in  Elizabethan  poetry.    Cf.  DANIEL'S  Sonnet,  LI. :  — 

"  Care-charmer  Sleep,  son  of  the  sable  Night, 
Brother  to  Death,  in  silent  darkness  born." 


174  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

But  all  was  vanity,  feeding  the  mind,  and  folly.  The  Egyptian 
mummies,  which  Cambyses  or  time  hath  spared,  avarice  now  con- 
sumeth.  Mummy  is  become  merchandise,  Mizraim  cures  wounds, 
and  Pharaoh  is  sold  for  balsams. 

In  vain  do  individuals  hope  for  immortality,  or  any  patent  from 
oblivion,  in  preservations  below  the  moon ;  men  have  been 
deceived  even  in  their  flatteries,  above  the  sun,  and  studied  con- 
ceits to  perpetuate  their  names  in  heaven.  The  various  cosmog- 
raphy of  that  part  hath  already  varied  the  names  of  contrived  con- 
stellations ;  Nimrod  is  lost  in  Orion,  and  Osyris  in  the  Dog-star. 
While  we  look  for  incorruption  in  the  heavens,  we  find  they  are 
but  like  the  earth ;  —  durable  in  their  main  bodies,  alterable  in 
their  parts,  whereof,  beside  comets  and  new  stars,  perspectives 
begin  to  tell  tales,  and  the  spots  that  wander  about  the  sun,  with 
Phaeton's  favor,  would  make  clear  conviction. 

There  is  nothing  strictly  immortal,  but  immortality.  Whatever 
hath  no  beginning,  may  be  confident  of  no  end ;  —  which  is  the 
peculiar  of  that  necessary  essence  that  cannot  destroy  itself;  — and 
the  highest  strain  of  omnipotency,  to  be  so  powerfully  constituted 
as  not  to  suffer  even  from  the  power  of  itself:  all  others  have  a 
dependent  being  and  within  the  reach  of  destruction.  .  But  the 
sufficiency  of  Christian'  immortality  frustrates  all  earthly  glory, 
and  the  quality  of  either  state  after  death,  makes  a  folly  of 
posthumous  memory.  God  who  can  only  destroy  our  souls,  and 
hath  assured  our  resurrection,  either  of  our  bodies  or  names 
hath  directly  promised  no  duration.  Wherein  there  is  so  much  of 
chance  that  the  boldest  expectants  have  found  unhappy  frustra- 
tions ;  and  to  hold  long  subsistence,  seems  but  a  scape  in  obliv- 
.ion.  But  man  is  a  noble  animal,  splendid  in  ashes,  and  pompous 
in  the  grave,  solemnizing  nativities  and  deaths  with  equal  lustre, 
nor  omitting  ceremonies  of  bravery  in  the  infamy  of  his  nature. 

Life  is  a  pure  flame,  and  we  live  by  an  invisible  sun  within  us. 
A  small  fire  sufficeth  for  life,  great  flames  seemed  too  little  after 
death,  while  men  vainly  affected  precious  pyres,  and  to  burn 
like  Sardanapalus ;  but  the  wisdom  of  funeral  laws  found  the  folly 


URN-BURIAL  (HYDRIOTAPHIA').  175 

of  prodigal  blazes,  and  reduced  undoing  fires  unto  the  rule  of  sob^r 
obsequies,  wherein  few  could  be  so  mean  as  not  to  provide  wood, 
pitch,  a  mourner,  and  an  urn. 

Five  languages  secured  not  the  epitaph  of  Gordianus. 21  The 
man  of  God  lives  longer  without  a  tomb  than  any  by  one,  invis- 
ibly interred  by  angels,  and  adjudged  to  obscurity,  though  not 
without  some  marks  directing  human  discovery.  Enoch  and 
Elias,  without  either  tomb  or  burial,  in  an  anomalous  state  of  being, 
are  the  great  examples  of  perpetuity,  in  their  long  and  living  mem- 
ory, in  strict  account  being  still  on  this  side  death,  and  having  a 
late  part  yet  to  act  upon  this  stage  of  earth.  If  in  the  decretory 
term  of  the  world  we  shall  not  all  die  but  be  changed,  according 
to  received  translation,  the  last  day  will  make  but  few  graves ; 
at  least  quick  resurrections  will  anticipate  lasting  sepultures. 
Some  graves  will  be  opened  before  they  be  quite  closed,  and 
Lazarus  be  no  wonder.  When  many  that  feared  to  die,  shall 
groan  that  they  can  die  but  once,  the  dismal  state  is  the  second 
and  living  death,  when  life  puts  despair  on  the  damned ;  when 
men  shall  wish  the  coverings  of  mountains,  not  of  monuments,  and 
annihilations  shall  be  courted. 

While  some  have  studied  monuments,  others  have  studiously 
declined  them,  and  some  have  been  so  vainly  boisterous,  that  they 
durst  not  acknowledge  their  graves ;  wherein  Alaricus  seems  most 
subtle,  who  had  a  river  turned  to  hide  his  bones  at  the  bottom. 
Even  Sylla,  that  thought  himself  safe  in  his  urn,  could  not  prevent 
revenging  tongues,  and  stones  thrown  at  his  monument.  Happy 
are  they  whom  privacy  makes  innocent,  who  deal  so  with  men 
in  this  world,  that  they  are  not  afraid  to  meet  them  in  the  next  j 
who,  when  they  die,  make  no  commotion  among  the  dead,  and 
are  not  touched  with  that  poetical  taint  of  Isaiah. ffi 

Pyramids,  arches,  obelisks,  were  but  the  irregularities  of  vain- 
glory, and  wild  enormities  of  ancient  magnanimity.  But  the  most 

21  "  In  Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  Egyptian,  Arabic :   defaced  by  Licinius  the 
emperor." —  WILKIN. 

22  Isaiah  xiv.  16. 


176  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

magnanimous  resolution  rests  in  the  Christian  religion,  which 
trampleth  upon  pride,  and  sits  on  the  neck  of  ambition,  humbly 
pursuing  that  infallible  perpetuity,  unto  which  all  others  must 
diminish  their  diameters,  and  be  poorly  seen  in  angles  of  con- 
tingency. M 

Pious  spirits  who  passed  their  days  in  raptures  of  futurity,  made 
little  more  of  this  world,  than  the  world  that  was  before  it,  while 
they  lay  obscure  in  the  chaos  of  pre-ordination,  and  night  of 
their  fore-beings.  And  if  any  have  been  so  happy  as  truly  to 
understand  Christian  annihilation,  ecstasies,  exolution,24  liquefac- 
tion, transformation,  the  kiss  of  the  spouse,  gustation K  of  God, 
and  ingression  into  the  divine  shadow,  they  have  already  had  an 
handsome  anticipation  of  heaven  ;  the  glory  of  the  world  is  surely 
over,  and  the  earth  in  ashes  unto  them. 

To  subsist  in  lasting  monuments,  to  live  in  their  productions,  to 
exist  in  their  names  and  predicament  of  chimeras,  was  large  satis- 
faction unto  old  expectations,  and  made  one  part  of  their 
Elysiums.  But  all  this  is  nothing  in  the  metaphysicks  of  true 
belief.  To  live  indeed,  is  to  be  again  ourselves,  which  being  not 
only  an  hope,  but  an  evidence  in  noble  believers,  'tis  all  one  to  lie 
in  St.  Innocent's  churchyard,  as  in  the  sands  of  Egypt.  Ready 
to  be  anything,  in  the  ecstasy  of  being  ever,  and  as  content  with 
six  foot  as  the  moles  of  Adrianus.26 

tabesne  cadavera  solvat 
An  rogus,  haud  refert.™ 

23  the  least  of  angles.  u  dissolution.  K  tasting,  or  enjoyment. 

28  The  Mausoleum  of  Hadrian  at  Rome,  the  modern  Castle  of  St.  Angelo. 
27  Whether   corruption   or  the  funeral  pyre    dissolve   corpses,   makes   »• 
difference.  —  LUCAN,  Pharsalia,  VII.  809-10. 


X. 

ABRAHAM    COWLEY. 

(1618-1667.) 

1.   A  DISCOURSE,  BY  WAY  OF   VISION,    CONCERNING 
THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  OLIVER   CROMWELL^ 

[Written  about  1660.] 

IT  was  the  funeral  day  of  the  late  man  who  made  himself  to  be 
called  protector.  And  though  I  bore  but  little  affection,  either  to 
the  memory  of  him,  or  to  the  trouble  and  folly  of  all  public  pag- 
eantry, yet  I  was  forced  by  the  importunity  of  my  company  to  go 
along  with  them,  and  be  a  spectator  of  that  solemnity,  the  expecta- 
tion of  which  had  been  so  great  that  it  was  said  to  have  brought 
some  very  curious  persons  (and  no  doubt  singular  virtuosos)  as  far 
as  from  the  Mount  in  Cornwall,  and  from  the  Orcades.  I  found 
there  had  been  much  more  cost  bestowed  than  either  the  dead 
man,  or  indeed  death  itself,  could  deserve.  There  was  a  mighty 
train  of  black  assistants,  among  which,  too,  divers  princes  in  the 
persons  of  their  ambassadors  (being  infinitely  afflicted  for  the  loss 
of  their  brother)  were  pleased  to  attend ;  the  hearse  was  magnifi- 
cent, the  idol  crowned,  and  (not  to  mention  all  other  ceremonies 
which  are  practised  at  royal  interments,  and  therefore  by  no 
means  could  be  omitted  here)  the  vast  multitude  of  spectators 
made  up,  as  it  uses  to  do,  no  small  part  of  the  spectacle  itself. 
But  yet,  I  know  not  how,  the  whole  was  so  managed,  that,  me- 
thought,  it  somewhat  represented  the  life  of  him  for  whom  it  was 
made ;  much  noise,  much  tumult,  much  expense,  much  magnifi- 
cence, much  vain-glory ;  briefly,  a  great  show,  and  yet,  after  all 
this,  but  an  ill  sight.  At  last  (for  it  seemed  long  to  me,  and,  like 

1  KURD  calls  this  "  the  best  of  our  author's  prose  works." 

177 


178  ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 

his  short  reign  too,  very  tedious)  the  whole  scene  passed  by ;  and 
I  retired  back  to  my  chamber,  weary,  and  I  think  more  melan- 
choly than  any  of  the  mourners ;  where  I  began  to  reflect  on  the 
whole  life  of  this  prodigious  man  :  and  sometimes  I  was  filled  with 
horror  and  detestation  of  his  actions,  and  sometimes  I  inclined  a 
little  to  reverence  and  admiration  of  his  courage,  conduct,  and 
success ;  till,  by  these  different  motions  and  agitations  of  mind, 
rocked,  as  it  were  asleep,  I  fell  at  last  into  this  vision ;  or  if  you 
please  to  call  it  but  a  dream,  I  shall  not  take  it  ill,  because  the 
father  of  poets  tells  us,  even  dreams,  too,  are  from  God. 

But  sure  it  was  no  dream ;  for  I  was  suddenly  transported  afar 
off  (whether  in  the  body,  or  out  of  the  body,  like  St.  Paul,  I  know 
not)  and  found  myself  on  the  top  of  that  famous  hill  in  the  island 
Mona,  which  has  the  prospect  of  three  great,  and  not-long-since 
most  happy,  kingdoms.  As  soon  as  ever  I  looked  on  them,  the 
not-long-since  struck  upon  my  memory,  and  called  forth  the  sad 
representation  of  all  the  sins,  and  all  the  miseries,  that  had  over- 
whelmed them  these  twenty  years.  And  I  wept  bitterly  for  two 
or  three  hours ;  and,  when  my  present  stock  of  moisture  was  all 
wasted,  I  fell  a  sighing  for  an  hour  or  more ;  and,  as  soon  as  I 
recovered  from  my  passion  the  use  of  speech  and  reason,  I  broke 
forth,  as  I  remember  (looking  upon  England)  into  this  complaint : 2 
****** 

I  think  I  should  have  gone  on,  but  that  I  was  interrupted  by  a 
strange  and  terrible  apparition  ;  for  there  appeared  to  me  (arising 
out  of  the  earth  as  I  conceived)  the  figure  of  a  man,  taller  than  a 
giant,  or  indeed  than  the  shadow  of  any  giant  in  the  evening. 
His  body  was  naked ;  but  that  nakedness  adorned,  or  rather 
deformed  all  over,  with  several  figures,  after  the  manner  of  the 
antient  Britons,  painted  upon  it :  and  I  perceived  that  most  of 
them  were  the  representation  of  the  late  battles  in  our  civil  wars, 
and  (if  I  be  not  much  mistaken)  it  was  the  battle  of  Naseby  that 
was  drawn  upon  his  breast.  His  eyes  were  like  burning  brass ; 

2  Here  follow  eight  stanzas  of  poetry. 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          179 

and  there  were  three  crowns  of  the  same  metal  (as  I  guessed) 
and  that  looked  as  red-hot  too,  upon  his  head.  He  held  in  his 
right  hand  a  sword,  that  was  yet  bloody,  and  nevertheless  the 
motto  of  it  was,  Pax  quceritur  bello  ; 3  and  in  his  left  hand  a  thick 
book,  upon  the  back  of  which  was  written  in  letters  of  gold,  Acts, 
Ordinances,  Protestations,  Covenants,  Engagements,  Declarations, 
Remonstrances,  &c. 

Though  this  sudden,  unusual,  and  dreadful  object  might  have 
quelled  a  greater  courage  than  mine,  yet  so  it  pleased  God  (for 
there  is  nothing  bolder  than  a  man  in  a  vision)  that  I  was  not  at  all 
daunted, but  asked  him  resolutely  and  briefly,  "What  art  thou?" 
And  he  said,  "  I  am  called  the  north-west  principality,  his  high- 
ness, the  protector  of  the  common-wealth  of  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  and  the  dominions  belonging  thereunto;  for  I  am 
that  angel,  to  whom  the  Almighty  has  committed  the  government 
of  those  three  kingdoms,  which  thou  seest  from  this  place."  And 
I  answered  and  said,  "  If  it  be  so,  Sir,  it  seems  to  me  that  for 
almost  these  twenty  years  past,  your  highness  has  been  absent  from 
your  charge  :  for  not  only  if  any  angel,  but  if  any  wise  and  honest 
man  had  since  that  time  been  our  governor,  we  should  not  have 
wandered  thus  long  in  these  laborious  and  endless  labyrinths  of 
confusion,  but  either  not  have  entered  at  all  into  them,  or  at  least 
have  returned  back  ere  we  had  absolutely  lost  our  way ;  but,  instead 
of  your  highness,  we  have  had  since  such  a  protector,  as  was  his 
predecessor  Richard  the  third  to  the  king  his  nephew ;  for  he 
presently  slew  the  commonwealth,  which  he  pretended  to  protect, 
and  set  up  himself  in  the  place  of  it ;  a  little  less  guilty  indeed  in 
one  respect,  because  the  other  slew  an  innocent,  and  this  man  did 
but  murder  a  murderer.  Such  a  protector  we  have  had,  as  we  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  changed  for  an  enemy,  and  rather  received 
a  constant  Turk,  than  this  every  month's  apostate ;  such  a  pro- 
tector, as  man  is  to  his  flocks,  which  he  sheers,  and  sells,  or 
devours  himself,  and  I  would  fain  know  what  the  wolf,  which  he 

8  Peace  is  sought  through  war. 


180  ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 

protects  him  from,  could  do  more.  Such  a  protector  — "  and  as  I 
was  proceeding,  me-thoughts,4  his  highness  began  to  put  on  a  dis- 
pleased and  threatening  countenance,  as  men  use  to  do  when  their 
dearest  friends  happen  to  be  traduced  in  their  company ;  which 
gave  me  the  first  rise  of  jealousy  against  him,  for  I  did  not  believe 
that  Cromwell  among  all  his  foreign  correspondences  had  ever  held 
any  with  angels.  However  I  was  not  hardened  enough  yet  to  ven- 
ture a  quarrel  with  him  then ;  and  therefore  (as  if  I  had  spoken  to 
the  protector  himself  in  Whitehall)  I  desired  him  "  that  his  high- 
ness would  please  to  pardon  me,  if  I  had  unwittingly  spoken  any- 
thing to  the  disparagement  of  a  person,  whose  relations  to  his 
highness  I  had  not  the  honour  to  know." 

At  which  he  told  me  "  that  he  had  no  other  concernment  for  his 
late  highness,  than  as  he  took  him  to  be  the  greatest  man  that 
ever  was  of  the  English  nation,  if  not  (said  he)  of  the  whole  world  ; 
which  gives  me  a  just  title  to  the  defence  of  his  reputation,  since  I 
now  account  myself,  as  it  were,  a  naturalized  English  angel,  by 
having  had  so  long  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  that  country. 
And  pray,  countryman,  (said  he,  very  kindly  and  very  flatteringly) 
for  I  would  not  have  you  fall  into  the  general  error  of  the  world, 
that  detests  and  decries  so  extraordinary  a  virtue,  What  can  be 
more  extraordinary  than  that  a  person  of  mean  birth,  no  for- 
tune, no  eminent  qualities  of  body,  which  have  sometimes, 
or  of  mind,  which  have  often  raised  men  to  the  highest 
dignities,  should  have  the  courage  to  attempt,  and  the  happiness 
to  succeed  in,  so  improbable  a  design  as  the  destruction  of  one 
of  the  most  antient,  and  most  solidly  founded  monarchies  upon 
the  earth  ?  that  he  should  have  the  power  or  boldness  to  put  his 
prince  and  master  to  an  open  and  infamous  death ;  to  banish  that 
numerous  and  strongly-allied  family ;  to  do  all  this  under  the  name 
and  wages  of  a  parliament;  to  trample  upon  them  too  as  he 
pleased,  and  spurn  them  out  of  doors,  when  he  grew  weary  of 
them ;  to  raise  up  a  new  and  unheard  of  monster  out  of  their 

*  So  HURD'S  text,  but  the  form  is  incorrect. 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          181 

ashes  ;  to  stifle  that  in  the  very  infancy,  and  set  up  himself  above 
all  things  that  ever  were  called  sovereign  in  England  ;  to  oppress 
all  his  enemies  by  arms,  and  all  his  friends  afterwards  by  artifice ; 
to  serve  all  parties  patiently  for  awhile,  and  to  command  them 
victoriously  at  last ;  to  over- run  each  corner  of  the  three  nations, 
and  overcome  with  equal  facility  both  the  riches  of  the  south  and 
the  poverty  of  the  north ;  to  be  feared  and  courted  by  all  foreign 
princes,  and  adopted  a  brother  to  the  gods  of  the  earth ;  to  call 
together  parliaments  with  a  word  of  his  pen,  and  scatter  them 
again  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth ;  to  be  humbly  and  daily  peti- 
tioned that  he  would  please  to  be  hired,  at  the  rate  of  two  millions 
a  year,  to  be  the  master  of  those  who  had  hired  him  before  to  be 
their  servant ;  to  have  the  estates  and  lives  of  three  kingdoms  as 
much  at  his  disposal  as  was  the  little  inheritance  of  his  father,  and 
to  be  as  noble  and  liberal  in  the  spending  of  them ;  and  lastly  (for 
there  is  no  end  of  all  particulars  of  his  glory)  to  bequeath  all  this 
with  one  word  to  his  posterity ;  to  die  with  peace  at  home,  and 
triumph  abroad  ;  to  be  buried  among  kings,  and  with  more  than 
regal  solemnity ;  and  to  leave  a  name  behind  him,  not  to  be  ex- 
tinguished, but  with  the  whole  world  ;  which,  as  it  is  now  too  little 
for  his  praises,  so  might  have  been  too  for  his  conquests,  if  the 
short  line  of  his  human  life  could  have  been  stretched  out  to  the 
extent  of  his  immortal  designs?" 

By  this  speech,  I  began  to  understand  perfectly  well  what  kind 
of  angel  his  pretended  highness  was ;  and  having  fortified  myself 
privately  with  a  short  mental  prayer,  and  with  the  sign  of  the 
cross  (not  out  of  any  superstition  to  the  sign,  but  as  a  recognition 
of  my  baptism  in  Christ),  I  grew  a  little  bolder,  and  replied  in 
this  manner :  "  I  should  not  venture  to  oppose  what  you  are 
pleased  to  say  in  commendation  of  the  late  great,  and  (I  confess) 
extraordinary  person,  but  that  I  remember  Christ  forbids  us  to 
assent  to  any  other  doctrine  but  what  himself  has  taught  us,  even 
though  it  should  be  delivered  by  an  angel ;  and  if  such  you  be, 
Sir,  it  may  be  you  have  spoken  all  this  rather  to  try  than  to  tempt 
my  frailty :  for  sure  I  am,  that  we  must  renounce  or  forget  all  the 


182  ABRAHAM  COW  LEY. 

laws  of  the  New  and  Old  Testament,  and  those  which  are  the 
foundation  of  both,  even  the  laws  of  moral"  and  natural  honesty,  if 
we  approve  of  the  action  of  that  man  whom  I  suppose  you  com- 
mend by  Irony. 

There  would  be  no  end  to  instance  in  the  particulars  of  all  his 
wickedness ;  but  to  sum  up  a  part  of  it  briefly :  What  can  be 
more  extraordinarily  wicked  than  for  a  person,  such  as  yourself 
qualify  him  rightly,  to  endeavour  not  only  to  exalt  himself  above, 
but  to  trample  upon,  all  his  equals  and  betters  ?  to  pretend  free- 
dom for  all  men,  and  under  the  help  of  that  pretense  to  make  all 
men  his  servants?  to  take  arms  against  taxes  of  scarce  two  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  to  raise  them  himself  to  above 
two  millions  ?  to  quarrel  for  the  loss  of  three  or  four  ears,  and  to 
strike  off  three  or  four  hundred  heads  ?  to  fight  against  an  imag- 
inary suspicion  of  I  know  not  what?  two  thousand  guards  to  be 
fetched  for  the  king,  I  know  not  from  whence,  and  to  keep  up  for 
himself  no  less  than  forty  thousand?  to  pretend  the  defence  of 
parliaments,  and  violently  to  dissolve  all  even  of  his  own  calling, 
and  almost  choosing  ?  to  undertake  the  reformation  of  religion,  to 
rob  it  even  to  the  very  skin,  and  then  to  expose  it  naked  to  the 
rage  of  all  sects  and  heresies?  to  set  up  counsels  of  rapine,  and 
courts  of  murder?  to  fight  against  the  king  under  a  commission 
for  him ;  to  take  him  forcibly  out  of  the  hands  of  those  for  whom 
he  had  conquered  him ;  to  draw  him  into  his  net  with  protes- 
tations and  vows  of  fidelity ;  and  when  he  had  caught  him  in  it,  to 
butcher  him  with  as  little  shame  as  conscience  or  humanity,  in 
the  open  face  of  the  whole  world  ?  to  receive  a  commission  for  the 
king  and  parliament,  to  murder  (as  I  said)  the  one,  and  destroy 
no  less  impudently  the  other?  to  fight  against  monarchy  when  he 
declared  for  it,  and  declare  against  it  when  he  contrived  for  it  in 
his  own  person?  to  abase  perfidiously  and  supplant  ingratefully  his 
own  general5  first,  and  afterwards  most  of  those  officers,  who,  with 
the  loss  of  their  honour  and  hazard  of  their  souls,  had  lifted  him 

5  Fairfax. 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          183 

up  to  the  top  of  his  unreasonable  ambitions  ?  to  break  his  faith 
with  all  enemies  and  with  all  friends  equally?  and  to  make  no  less 
frequent  use  of  the  most  solemn  perjuries,  than  the  looser  sort  of 
people  do  of  customary  oaths  ?  to  usurp  three  kingdoms  without 
any  shadow  of  the  least  pretensions,  and  to  govern  them  as  unjustly 
as  he  got  them  ?  to  set  himself  up  as  an  idol  (which  we  know,  as 
St.  Paul  says,  in  itself  is  nothing),  and  make  the  very  streets  of 
London  like  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  by  burning  the  bowels  of  men 
as  a  sacrifice  to  his  molochship?  to  seek  to  entail  this  usurpa- 
tion upon  his  posterity,  and  with  it  an  endless  war  upon  the 
nation  ?  and  lastly,  by  the  severest  judgment  of  Almighty  God,  to 
die  hardened,  and  mad,  and  unrepentant,  with  the  curses  of  the 
present  age,  and  the  detestation  of  all  to  succeed?" 

Though  I  had  much  more  to  say  (for  the  life  of  man  is  so  short, 
that  it  allows  not  time  enough  to  speak  against  a  tyrant)  ;  yet,  be- 
cause I  had  a  mind  to  hear  how  my  strange  adversary  would  behave 
himself  upon  this  subject,  and  to  give  even  the  devil  (as  they  say) 
his  right  and  fair  play  in  a  disputation,  I  stopped  here,  and  expected, 
not  without  the  frailty  of  a  little  fear,  that  he  should  have  broke  into 
a  violent  passion  in  behalf  of  his  favourite  :  but  he  on  the  contrary 
very  calmly,  and  with  the  dove-like  innocency  of  a  serpent  that  was 
not  yet  warmed  enough  to  sting,  thus  replied  to  me  : 

"  It  is  not  so  much  out  of  my  affection  to  that  person  whom  we 
discourse  of  (whose  greatness  is  too  solid  to  be  shaken  by  the 
breath  of  an  oratory),  as  for  your  own  sake  (honest  countryman), 
whom  I  conceive  to  err  rather  by  mistake  than  out  of  malice,  that 
I  shall  endeavour  to  reform  your  uncharitable  and  unjust  opinion. 
And,  in  the  first  place,  I  must  needs  put  you  in  mind  of  a  sentence 
of  the  most  antient  of  the  heathen  divines,  that  you  men  are 
acquainted  withal, 

oViav  \_o(Tiri~\  KTa/jtevotcriv  CTT'  di/Spacri 

Tis  wicked  with  insulting  feet  to  tread 
Upon  the  monuments  of  the  dead. 

8  HOMER,  Odyssey,  XXII.  412. 


184  ABRAHAM  COW  LEY. 

And  the  intention  of  the  reproof  there  is  no  less  proper  for  this 
subject ;  for  it  was  spoken  to  a  person  who  was  proud  and  inso- 
lent against  those  dead  men,  to  whom  he  [she  ?]  had  been  humble 
and  obedient  whilst  they  lived." 

"  Your  highness  may  please  (said  I)  to  add  the  verse  that  fol- 
lows, as  no  less  proper  for  this  subject : 

Whom  God's  just  doom  and  their  own  sins  have  sent 
Already  to  their  punishment. 

But  I  take  this  to  be  the  rule  in  the  case,  that,  when  we  fix  any 
infamy  upon  deceased  persons,  it  should  not  be  done  out  of  hatred 
to  the  dead,  but  out  of  love  and  charity  to  the  living  :  that  the 
curses,  which  only  remain  in  men's  thoughts,  and  dare  not  come 
forth  against  tyrants  (because  they  are  tyrants)  whilst  they  are  so, 
may  at  least  be  for  ever  settled  and  engraven  upon  their  mem- 
ories, to  deter  all  others  from  the  like  wickedness ;  which  else,  in 
the  time  of  their  foolish  prosperity,  the  flattery  of  their  own  hearts, 
and  of  other  men's  tongues,  would  not  suffer  them  to  perceive. 
Ambition  is  so  subtile  a  tempter,  and  the  corruption  of  human 
nature  so  susceptible  of  the  temptation,  that  a  man  can  hardly 
resist  it,  be  he  never  so  much  forewarned  of  the  evil  consequences  ; 
much  less  if  he  find  not  only  the  concurrence  of  the  present,  but 
the  approbation  too  of  following  ages,  which  have  the  liberty  to 
judge  more  freely.  The  mischief  of  tyranny  is  too  great,  even  in 
the  shortest  time  that  it  can  continue  ;  it  is  endless  and  insupporta- 
ble, if  the  example  be  to  reign  too  ;  and  if  a  Lambert  must  be  invited 
to  follow  the  steps  of  a  Cromwell,  as  well  by  the  voice  of  honour, 
as  by  the  sight  of  power  and  riches.  Though  it  may  seem  to  some 
fantastically,  yet  was  it  wisely  done  of  the  Syracusans,  to  implead 
with  the  forms  of  their  ordinary  justice,  to  condemn  and  destroy 
even  the  statues  of  all  their  tyrants  :  if  it  were  possible  to  cut  them 
out  of  all  history,  and  to  extinguish  their  very  names,  I  am  of 
opinion  that  it  ought  to  be  done  ;  but,  since  they  have  left  behind 
them  too  deep  wounds  to  be  ever  closed  up  without  a  scar,  at 
least  let  us  set  such  a  mark  upon  their  memory  that  men  of 


THE   GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          185 

the  same  wicked  inclinations  may  be  no  less  affrighted  with  their 
lasting  ignominy  than  enticed  by  their  momentary  glories.  And 
that  your  highness  may  perceive  that  I  speak  not  all  this  out  of 
any  private  animosity  against  the  person  of  the  late  protector,  I 
assure  you,  upon  my  faith,  that  I  bear  no  more  hatred  to  his 
name  than  I  do  to  that  of  Marius  or  Sylla,  who  never  did  me,  or 
any  friend  of  mine,  the  least  injury;"  and  with  that,  transported 
by  a  holy  fury,  I  fell  into  this  sudden  rapture  : 7 

****** 

Here,  the  spirit  of  verse  beginning  a  little  to  fail,  I  stopt :  and 
his  highness,  smiling,  said,  "  I  was  glad  to  see  you  engaged  in  the 
enclosure  of  metre ;  for,  if  you  had  staid  in  the  open  plain  of  dis- 
claiming against  the  word  tyrant,  I  must  have  had  patience  for 
half  a  dozen  hours,  till  you  had  tired  yourself  as  well  as  me.  But 
pray,  countryman,  to  avoid  this  sciomachy,8  or  imaginary  combat 
with  words,  let  me  know,  Sir,  what  you  mean  by  the  name  of 
tyrant,  for  I  remember  that,  among  your  ancient  authors,  not  only 
all  kings,  but  even  Jupiter  himself  (your  juvans  pater*}  is  so 
termed ;  and  perhaps,  as  it  was  used  formerly,  in  a  good  sense, 
so  we  shall  find  it,  upon  better  consideration,  to  be  still  a  good 
thing  for  the  benefit  and  peace  of  mankind  ;  at  least,  it  will  appear 
whether  your  interpretation  of  it  may  be  justly  applied  to  the 
person,  who  is  now  the  subject  of  our  discourse." 

"  I  call  him  (said  I)  a  tyrant,  who  either  intrudes  himself  forci- 
bly into  the  government  of  his  fellow-citizens  without  any  legal 
authority  over  them  ;  or  who,  having  'a  just  title  to  the  govern- 
ment of  a  people,  abuses  it  to  the  destruction,  or  tormenting  of 
them.  So  that  all  tyrants  are  at  the  same  time  usurpers,  either  of 
the  whole,  or  at  least  of  a  part,  of  that  power  which  they  assume 
to  themselves ;  and  no  less  are  they  to  be  accounted  rebels,  since 
no  man  can  usurp  authority  over  others,  but  by  rebelling  against 

7  Here  follow  eight  stanzas  of  poetry. 

8  fighting  with  a  shadow. 

9  helping  father. 


186  ABRAHAM  COW  LEY. 

them  who  had  it  before,  or  at  least  against  those  laws  which  were 
his  superiors :  and  in  all  these  senses  no  history  can  afford  us  a 
more  evident  example  of  tyranny,  or  more  out  of  all  possibility  of 
excuse,  or  palliation,  than  that  of  the  person  whom  you  are  pleased 
to  defend ;  whether  we  consider  his  reiterated  rebellions  against 
all  his  superiors,  or  his  usurpation  of  the  supreme  power  to  him- 
self, or  his  tyranny  in  the  exercise  of  it :  and,  if  lawful  princes 
have  been  esteemed  tyrants  by  not  containing  themselves  within 
the  bounds  of  those  laws  which  have  been  left  them,  as  the  sphere 
of  their  authority,  by  their  forefathers,  what  shall  we  say  of 
that  man,  who,  having  by  right  no  power  at  all  in  this  nation, 
could  not  content  himself  with  that  which  had  satisfied  the 
most  ambitious  of  our  princes?  nay,  not  with  those  vastly  ex- 
tended limits  of  sovereignty,  which  he  (disdaining  all  that  had 
oeen  prescribed  and  observed  before)  was  pleased  (out  of  great 
modesty)  to  set  to  himself;  not  abstaining  from  rebellion  and 
usurpation  even  against  his  own  laws,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
nation?" 

"  Hold,  friend,  (said  his  highness,  pulling  me  by  my  arm)  for  I 
see  your  zeal  is  transporting  you  again ;  whether  the  protector 
were  a  tyrant  in  the  exorbitant  exercise  of  his  power,  we  shall  see 
anon ;  it  is  requisite  to  examine,  first,  whether  he  were  so  in  the 
usurpation  of  it.  And  I  say,  that  not  only  he,  but  no  man  else, 
ever  was,  or  can  be  so  ;  and  that  for  these  reasons.  First,  because 
all  power  belongs  only  to  God,  who  is  the  source  and  fountain  of 
it,  as  kings  are  of  all  honours  in  their  dominions.  Princes  are 
but  his  viceroys  in  the  little  provinces  of  this  world ;  and  to  some 
he  gives  their  places  for  a  few  years,  to  some  for  their  lives,  and 
to  others  (upon  ends  or  deserts  best  known  to  himself,  or  merely 
for  his  undisputable  good  pleasure)  he  bestows,  as  it  were,  leases 
upon  them  and  their  posterity,  for  such  a  date  of  time  as  is  pre- 
fixed in  that  patent  of  their  destiny,  which  is  not  legible  to  you 
men  below.  Neither  is  it  more  unlawful  for  Oliver  to  succeed 
Charles  in  the  kingdom  of  England,  when  God  so  disposes  of  it, 
than  it  had  been  for  him  to  have  succeeded  the  Lord  Strafford  in 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          187 

the  lieutenancy  of  Ireland,  if  he  had  been  appointed  to  it  by  the 
king  then  reigning.  Men  are  in  both  the  cases  obliged  to  obey 
him  whom  they  see  actually  invested  with  the  authority  by  that 
sovereign  from  whom  he  ought  to  derive  it,  without  disputing  or 
examining  the  causes,  either  of  the  removal  of  the  one,  or  the 
preferment  of  the  other.  Secondly,  because  all  power  is  attained 
either  by  the  election  and  consent  of  the  people  (and  that  takes 
away  your  objection  of  forcible  intrusion)  ;  or  else,  by  a  conquest 
of  them  (and  that  gives  such  a  legal  authority  as  you  mention  to 
be  wanting  in  the  usurpation  of  a  tyrant)  ;  so  that  either  this  title 
is  right,  and  then  there  are  no  usurpers,  or  else  it  is  a  wrong  one, 
and  then  there  are  none  else  but  usurpers,  if  you  examine  the 
original  pretences  of  the  princes  of  the  world.  Thirdly,  (which, 
quitting  the  dispute  in  general,  is  a  particular  justification  of  his 
highness,)  the  government  of  England  was  totally  broken  and  dis- 
solved, and  extinguished  by  the  confusions  of  a  civil  war ;  so  that 
his  highness  could  not  be  accused  to  have  possessed  himself 
violently  of  the  antient  building  of  the  commonwealth,  but  to 
have  prudently  and  peaceably  built  up  a  new  one  out  of  the  ruins 
and  ashes  of  the  former ;  and  he  who  after  a  deplorable  ship- 
wreck, can  with  extraordinary  industry  gather  together  the  dis- 
persed and  broken  planks  and  pieces  of  it,  and  with  no  less 
wonderful  art  and  felicity  so  rejoin  them  as  to  make  a  new  vessel 
more  tight  and  beautiful  than  the  old  one,  deserves,  no  doubt,  to 
have  the  command  of  her  (even  as  his  highness  had)  by  the 
desire  of  the  seamen  and  passengers  themselves.  And  do  but 
consider,  lastly,  (for  I  omit  a  multitude  of  weighty  things,  that 
might  be  spoken  upon  this  noble  argument)  do  but  consider 
seriously  and  impartially  with  yourself,  what  admirable  parts  of 
wit  and  prudence,  what  indefatigable  diligence  and  invincible 
courage,  must  of  necessity  have  concurred  in  the  person  of  that 
man  who,  from  so  contemptible  beginnings  (as  I  observed  before), 
and  through  so  many  thousand  difficulties,  was  able  not  only  to 
make  himself  the  greatest  and  most  absolute  monarch  of  this 
nation ;  but  to  add  to  it  the  entire  conquest  of  Ireland  and  Scot- 


188  ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 

land  (which  the  whole  force  of  the  world  joined  with  the  Roman 
virtue  could  never  attain  to),  and  to  crown  all  this  with  illustri- 
ous and  heroical  undertakings  and  successes  upon  all  our  foreign 
enemies  :  do  but  (I  say  again)  consider  this,  and  you  will  confess 
that  his  prodigious  merits  were  a  better  title  to  imperial  dignity 
than  the  blood  of  an  hundred  royal  progenitors ;  and  will  rather 
lament  that  he  lived  not  to  overcome  more  nations  than  envy  him 
the  conquest  and  dominion  of  these." 

"  Whoever  you  are  (said  I,  my  indignation  making  me  some- 
what bolder)  your  discourse  (methinks)  becomes  as  little  the 
person  of  a  tutelar  angel,  as  Cromwell's  actions  did  that  of  a 
protector.  It  is  upon  these  principles  that  all  the  great  crimes  of 
the  world  have  been  committed,  and  most  particularly  those 
which  I  have  had  the  misfortune  to  see  in  my  own  time,  and  in 
my  own  country.  If  these  be  to  be  allowed,  we  must  break  up 
human  society,  retire  into  woods,  and  equally  there  stand  upon 
our  guards  against  our  brethren  mankind,  and  our  rebels  the  wild 
beasts.  For,  if  there  can  be  no  usurpation  upon  the  rights  of  a 
whole  nation,  there  can  be  none  most  certainly  upon  those  of  a 
private  person;  and,  if  the  robbers  of  countreys  be  God's 
vicegerents,  there  is  no  doubt  but  the  thieves  and  banditos,  and 
murderers,  are  his  under  officers.  It  is  true  which  you  say,  that 
God  is  the  source  and  fountain  of  all  power ;  and  it  is  no  less 
true,  that  he  is  the  creator  of  serpents,  as  well  as  angels  ;  nor  does 
his  goodness  fail  of  its  ends,  even  in  the  malice  of  his  own  crea- 
tures. What  power  he  suffers  the  devil  to  exercise  in  this  world, 
is  too  apparent  by  our  daily  experience  ;  and  by  nothing  more  than 
the  late  monstrous  iniquities  which  you  dispute  for,  and  patronize 
in  England  :  but  would  you  infer  from  thence  that  the  power  of 
the  devil  is  a  just  and  lawful  one  ;  and  that  all  men  ought,  as  well 
as  most  do,  obey  him  ?  God  is  the  fountain  of  all  powers ;  but 
some  flow  from  the  rich  hand  (as  it  were)  of  his  goodness,  and 
others  from  the  left  hand  of  his  justice  ;  and  the  world,  like  an 
island  between  these  two  rivers,  is  sometimes  refreshed  and  nour- 
ished by  the  one,  and  sometimes  over- run  and  ruined  by  the 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF  OLIVER    CROMWELL.          189 

other ;  and  (to  continue  a  little  farther  the  allegory)  we  are  never 
overwhelmed  with  the  latter,  till  either  by  our  malice  or  negligence 
we  have  stopped  and  dammed  up  the  former."10 

10  COWLEY  continues  at  some  length,  refuting  with  vigor  each  separate  argu- 
ment of  the  angel  in  behalf  of  Cromwell.  The  whole  Vision  is  a  beautiful 
example  of  simple,  easy,  and  natural  English  prose  of  this  time,  and  is  a  great 
contrast  to  the  prose  of  Milton  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


X. 

2.    SEVERAL    DISCOURSES,    BY    WAY    OF   ESSAYS,    IN 
VERSE  AND   PROSE. 

[Written  between  1660  and  1667.] 

ESSAY  IX. — THE  SHORTNESS  OF  LIFE  AND  UNCERTAINTY  OF  RICHES. 

IF  you  should  see  a  man  who  were  to  cross  from  Dover  to 
Calais,  run  about  very  busy  and  solicitous,  and  trouble  himself 
many  weeks  before  in  making  provisions  for  the  voyage,  would 
you  commend  him  for  a  cautious  and  discreet  person,  or  laugh  at 
him  for  a  timorous  and  impertinent  coxcomb?  A  man  who  is 
excessive  in  his  pains  and  diligence,  and  who  consumes  the 
greatest  part  of  his  time  in  furnishing  the  remainder  with  all  con- 
veniences and  even  superfluities,  is  to  angels  and  wise  men  no 
less  ridiculous;  he  does  as  little  consider  the  shortness  of  his 
passage  that  he  might  proportion  his  cares  accordingly.  It  is, 
alas,  so  narrow  a  strait  betwixt  the  womb  and  the  grave,  that  it 
might  be  called  the  Pas  de  Vie*  as  well  as  the  Pas  de  Calais. 
We  are  all  tyqpupoi,11  as  Pindar  calls  us,  creatures  of  a  day,  and 
therefore  our  Saviour  bounds  our  desires  to  that  little  space ;  as 
if  it  were  very  probable  that  every  day  should  be  our  last,  we  are 
taught  to  demand  even  bread  for  no  longer  a  time.  The  sun 
ought  not  to  set  upon  our  covetousness,  no  more  than  upon  our 
anger ;  but  as  to  God  Almighty  a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day, 
so,  in  direct  opposition,  one  day  to  the  covetous  man  is  as  a  thou- 
sand years,  tarn  brevi  fortis  jaculatur  cevo  multa,  12so  far  he  shoots 
beyond  his  butt.  One  would  think  he  were  of  the  opinion  of  the 
Millenaries,  and  hoped  for  so  long  a  reign  upon  earth.  The 

11  for  a  day.  *  strait  of  life. 

12  in  so  short  a  life  he  bravely  aims  at  many  things.  —  HORACE,  Odes,  II. 
1 6,  17. 

190 


DISCOURSES,    BY  WAY  OF  ESSAYS.  191 

patriarchs  before  the  flood,  who  enjoyed  almost  such  a  life,  made, 
we  are  sure,  less  stores  for  the  maintaining  of  it ;  they  who  lived 
nine  hundred  years  scarcely  provided  for  a  few  days ;  we  who  live 
but  a  few  days,  provide  at  least  for  nine  hundred  years.  What  a 
strange  alteration  is  this  of  human  life  and  manners  !  and  yet  we 
see  an  imitation  of  it  in  every  man's  particular  experience,  for  we 
begin  not  the  cares  of  life  till  it  be  half  spent,  and  still  increase 
them  as  that  decreases.  What  is  there  among  the  actions  of 
beasts  so  illogical  and  repugnant  to  reason?  When  they  do  any- 
thing which  seems  to  proceed  from  that  which  we  call  reason,  we 
disdain  to  allow  them  that  perfection,  and  attribute  it  only  to  a 
natural  instinct.  If  we  could  but  learn  to  number  our  days  (as 
we  are  taught  to  pray  that  we  might)  we  should  adjust  much 
better  our  other  accounts,  but  whilst  we  never  consider  an  end 
of  them,  it  is  no  wonder  if  our  cares  for  them  be  without  end 
too.  Horace  advises  very  wisely,  and  in  excellent  good  words, 
spatio  brevi  spem  longam  reseces ; 13  from  a  short  life  cut  off  all 
hopes  that  grow  too  long.  They  must  be  pruned  away  like  suckers 
that  choke  the  mother-plant,  and  hinder  it  from  bearing  fruit. 
And  in  another  place  to  the  same  sense,  Vittz  summa  breins  spent 
nos  vetat  inchoare  longam, "  which  Seneca  does  not  mend  when 
he  says,  O  quanta  dementia  est  spes  longas  inchoantium  ! 15  but  he 
gives  an  example  there  of  an  acquaintance  of  his  named  Senecio, 
who  from  a  very  mean  beginning  by  great  industry  in  turning 
about  of  money  through  all  ways  of  gain,  had  attained  to  extraor- 
dinary riches,  but  died  on  a  sudden  after  having  supped  merrily, 
In  ipso  actu  bene  cedentium  rerum,  in  ipso  procurrentis  fortunes 
\_pecunici\  impetu  ;16  in  the  full  course  of  his  good  fortune,  when 

18  HORACE,  Odes,  I.  n,  7. 

14  The  short  sum  of  life  forbids  our  indulging  long  hopes.  —  HORACE,  Odes, 

I-  4,  15- 

15  Oh  how  great  is  the  madness  of  those  who  indulge  long  hopes.  —  SENECA, 
Epistles,  101,  4. 

16  On  the  -very  point  of  success,  at  the  very  moment  of  advancing  fortune.— 
SENECA,  Epistles,  101,  4. 


192  ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 

she  had  a  high  tide  and  a  stiff  gale  and  all  her  sails  on  ;  upon  which 
occasion  he  cries,  out  of  Virgil : 

Insere  nunc,  Melibae,  pyros,  pone  or  dine  vites  :  17 

Go  to,  Melibseus,  now, 

Go  graff  thy  orchards  and  thy  vineyards  plant; 

Behold  the  fruit ! 

For  this  Senecio  I  have  no  compassion,  because  he  was  taken, 
as  we  say,  in  ipso  facto,  still  labouring  in  the  work  of  avarice ;  but 
the  poor  rich  man  in  St.  Luke  (whose  case  was  not  like  this)  I 
could  pity,  methinks,  if  the  Scripture  would  permit  me,  for  he 
seems  to  have  been  satisfied  at  last ;  he  confesses  he  had  enough 
for  many  years ;  he  bids  his  soul  take  its  ease ;  and  yet  for  all 
that,  God  says  to  him,  "Thou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul  shall  be 
required  of  thee,  and  the  things  thou  hast  laid  up,  whom  shall 
they  belong  to?"  Where  shall  we  find  the  causes  of  this  bitter 
reproach  and  terrible  judgment ;  we  may  find,  I  think,  two,  and 
God  perhaps  saw  more.  First,  that  he  did  not  intend  true  rest 
to  the  soul,  but  only  to  change  the  employments  of  it  from  avarice 
to  luxury;  his  design  is  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  to  be  merry. 
Secondly,  that  he  went  on  too  long  before  he  thought  of  resting ; 
the  fulness  of  his  old  barns  had  not  sufficed  him,  he  would  stay 
till  he  was  forced  to  build  new  ones ;  and  God  meted  out  to  him 
in  the  same  measure ;  since  he  would  have  more  riches  than  his 
life  could  contain,  God  destroyed  his  life  and  gave  the  fruits  of  it 
to  another. 

Thus  God  takes  away  sometimes  the  man  from  his  riches,  and 
no  less  frequently  riches  from  the  man  :  what  hope  can  there  be 
of  such  a  marriage  where  both  parties  are  so  fickle  and  uncertain ; 
by  what  bonds  can  such  a  couple  be  kept  long  together?18 

17  VIRGIL,  Eclogues,  I.  74. 

18  Here  follow  thirteen  quatrains  on  the  same  theme. 


DISCOURSES,   BY    WAY  OF  ESSAYS.  193 


ESSAY  XI.  —  OF  MYSELF. 

IT  is  a  hard  and  nice  subject  for  a  man  to  write  of  himself;  it 
grates  his  own  heart  to  say  anything  of  disparagement  and  the 
reader's  ears  to  hear  anything  of  praise  for  him.  There  is  no 
danger  from  me  of  offending  him  in  this  kind  ;  neither  my  mind, 
nor  my  body,  nor  my  fortune  allow  me  any  materials  for  that 
vanity.  It  is  sufficient  for  my  own  contentment  that  they  have  pre- 
served me  from  being  scandalous,  or  remarkable  on  the  defective 
side.  But  besides  that,  I  shall  here  speak  of  myself  only  in  rela- 
tion to  the  subject  of  these  precedent  discourses,  and  shall  be 
likelier  thereby  to  fall  into  the  contempt  than  rise  up  to  the  esti- 
mation of  most  people.  As  far  as  my  memory  can  return  back 
into  my  past  life,  before  I  knew  or  was  capable  of  guessing  what 
the  world,  or  glories,  or  business  of  it  were,  the  natural  affections 
of  my  soul  gave  me  a  secret  bent  of  aversion  from  them,  as  some 
plants  are  said  to  turn  away  from  others  by  an  antipathy  imper- 
ceptible to  themselves  and  inscrutable  to  man's  understanding. 
Even  when  I  was  a  very  young  boy  at  school,  instead  of  running 
about  on  holidays  and  playing  with  my  fellows,  I  was  wont  to  steal 
from  them  and  walk  into  the  fields,  either  alone  with  a  book,  or 
with  some  one  companion,  if  I  could 'find  any  of  the  same  temper. 
I  was  then,  too,  so  much  an  enemy  to  all  constraint,  that  my 
masters  could  never  prevail  on  me,  by  any  persuasions  or  encour- 
agements, to  learn  without  book  the  common  rules  of  grammar, 
in  which  they  dispensed  with  me  alone,  because  they  found  I 
made  a  shift  to  do  the  usual  exercises  out  of  my  own  reading  and 
observation.  That  I  was  then  of  the  same  mind  as  I  am  now 
(which,  I  confess,  I  wonder  at  myself)  may  appear  by  the  latter 
end  of  an  ode  which  I  made  when  I  was  but  thirteen  years  old, 
and  which  was  then  printed  with  many  other  verses.  The  begin- 
ning of  it  is  boyish,  but  of  this  part  which  I  here  set  down,  if  a 
very  little  were  corrected,  I  should  hardly  now  be  much  ashamed. 


194  ABRAHAM  COW  LEY. 

IX. 

This  only  grant  me,  that  my  means  may  lie 
Too  low  for  envy,  for  contempt  too  high. 

Some  honour  I  would  have, 
Not  from  great  deeds,  but  good  alone. 
The  unknown  are  better  than  ill-known; 

Rumour  can  ope  the  grave. 
Acquaintance  I  would  have,  but  when't  depends 
Not  on  the  number,  but  the  choice  of  friends. 

X. 

Books  should,  not  business,  entertain  the  light, 
And  sleep,  as  undisturb'd  as  death,  the  night. 

My  house  a  cottage  more 
Than  palace,  and  should  fitting  be 
For  all  my  use,  no  luxury. 

My  garden  painted  o'er 

With  Nature's  hand,  not  Art's;   and  pleasures  yield, 
Horace  might  envy  in  his  Sabine  field. 

XI. 

Thus  would  I  double  my  life's  fading  space; 
For  he  that  runs  it  well  twice  runs  his  race. 

And  in  this  true  delight, 
These  unbought  sports,  this  happy  state, 
I  would  not  fear,  nor  wish,  my  fate; 

But  boldly  say  each  night, 
To-morrow  let  my  sun  his  beams  display, 
Or  in  clouds  hide  them,  —  I  have  liv'd  to-day. 

You  may  see  by  it  I  was  even  then  acquainted  with  the  poets 
(for  the  conclusion  is  taken  out  of  Horace),19  and  perhaps  it  was 
the  immature  and  immoderate  love  of  them  which  stamped  first, 
or  rather  engraved,  these  characters  in  me.  They  were  like  letters 
cut  into  the  bark  of  a  young  tree,  which  with  the  tree  still  grow 
proportionably.  But  how  this  love  came  to  be  produced  in  rrfe 
so  easily  is  a  hard  question.  I  believe  I  can  tell  the  particular 

19  HORACE,  Odes,  III,  29,  41  /. 


DISCOURSES,    BY    WAY  OF  ESSAYS.  195 

little  chance  that  filled  my  head  first  with  such  chimes  of  verse  as 
have  never  since  left  ringing  there.  For,  I  remember  when  I 
began  to  read,  and  to  take  some  pleasure  in  it,  there  was  wont  to 
lie  in  my  mother's  parlour  (I  know  not  by  what  accident,  for  she 
herself  never  in  her  life  read  any  book  but  of  devotion) ,  but  there 
was  wont  to  lie  Spenser's  works ;  this  I  happened  to  fall  upon, 
and  was  infinitely  delighted  with  the  stories  of  the  knights,  and 
giants,  and  monsters,  and  brave  houses,  which  I  found  everywhere 
there  (though  my  understanding  had  little  to  do  with  all  this)  ; 
and  by  degrees  with  the  tinkling  of  the  rhyme  and  dance  of  the 
numbers,  so  that  I  think  I  had  read  him  all  over  before  I  was 
twelve  years  old.  .  .  .  With  these  affections  of  mind,  and  my 
heart  wholly  set  upon  letters,  I  went  to  the  university,  but  was 
soon  torn  from  thence  by  that  violent  public  storm  which  would 
suffer  nothing  to  stand  where  it  did,  but  rooted  up  every  plant, 
even  from  the  princely  cedars  to  me,  the  hyssop.  Yet  I  had  as 
good  fortune  as  could  have  befallen  me  in  such  a  tempest ;  for  I 
was  cast  by  it  into  the  family  of  one  of  the  best  persons,  and  into 
the  court  of  one  of  the  best  princesses  of  the  world.  Now,  though 
I  was  here  engaged  in  ways  most  contrary  to  the  original  design 
of  my  life,  that  is,  into  much  company,  and  no  small  business,  and 
into  a  daily  sight  of  greatness,  both  militant  and  triumphant,  for 
that  was  the  state  then  of  the  English  and  French  Courts ;  yet  all 
this  was  so  far  from  altering  my  opinion,  that  it  only  added  the 
confirmation  of  reason  to  that  which  was  before  but  natural  incli- 
nation. I  saw  plainly  all  the  paint  of  that  kind  of  life,  the  nearer 
I  came  to  it ;  and  that  beauty  which  I  did  not  fall  in  love  with 
when,  for  aught  I  knew,  it  was  real,  was  not  like  to  bewitch  or 
entice  me  when  I  saw  that  it  was  adulterate.  I  met  with  several 
great  persons,  whom  I  liked  very  well,  but  could  not  perceive  that 
any  part  of  their  greatness  was  to  be  liked  or  desired,  no  more 
than  I  would  be  glad  or  content  to  be  in  a  storm,  though  I  saw 
many  ships  which  rid  safely  and  bravely  in  it.  A  storm  would  not 
agree  with  my  stomach,  if  it  did  with  my  courage.  Though  I  was 
in  a  crowd  of  as  good  company  as  could  be  found  anywhere, 


1%  ABRAHAM  COWLEY. 

though  I  was  in  business  of  great  and  honourable  trust,  though  I 
eat  at  the  best  table,  and  enjoyed  the  best  conveniences  for 
present  subsistence  that  ought  to  be  desired  by  a  man  of  my  con- 
dition in  banishment  and  public  distresses,  yet  I  could  not  abstain 
from  renewing  my  old  schoolboy's  wish  in  a  copy  of  verses  to  the 

same  effect : 

Well  then;  I  now  do  plainly  see, 

This  busy  world  and  I  shall  ne'er  agree,  etc.20 

And  I  never  then  proposed  to  myself  any  other  advantage  from 
His  Majesty's  happy  Restoration,  but  the  getting  into  some  moder- 
ately convenient  retreat  in  the  country,  which  I  thought  in  that 
case  I  might  easily  have  compassed,  as  well  as  some  others,21  with 
no  greater  probabilities  or  pretences  have  arrived  to  extraordi- 
nary fortunes.  But  I  had  before  written  a  shrewd  prophecy  against 
myself,  and  I  think  Apollo  inspired  me  in  the  truth,  though  not  in 
the  elegance  of  it : 

Thou,  neither  great  at  court  nor  in  the  war, 
Nor  at  th'  exchange  shalt  be,  nor  at  the  wrangling  bar; 
Content  thyself  with  the  small  barren  praise, 
Which  neglected  verse  does  raise,  etc.22 

However,  by  the  failing  of  the  forces  which  I  had  expected,  I 
did  not  quit  the  design  which  I  had  resolved  on ;  I  cast  myself 
into  it  a  corps  perdu™  without  making  capitulations  or  taking 
counsel  of  fortune.  But  God  laughs  at  a  man  who  says  to  his 
soul,  "  take  thy  ease  "  :  I  met  presently  not  only  with  many  little 
encumbrances  and  impediments,  but  with  so  much  sickness  (a 
new  misfortune  to  me)  as  would  have  spoiled  the  happiness  of  an 
emperor  as  well  as  mine.  Yet  I  do  neither  repent  nor  alter  my 
course.  Nyn  ego  perfidum  dixi  sacramentum?^  Nothing  shall 
separate  me  from  a  mistress  which  I  have  loved  so  long,  and  have 

2}  From  The  Wish.  21  relative  omitted. 

22  COWLEY  inserts  two  stanzas  from  one  of  his  Pindaric  Odes. 
28  with  heart  and  soul. 
24  /  did  not  take  a  treacherous  oath-  —  HORACE,  Odes,  II.  1 7.  IO. 


DISCOURSES,   BY   WAY  OF  ESSAYS.  197 

now  at  last  married,  though  she  neither  has  brought  me  a  rich 
portion,  nor  lived  yet  so  quietly  with  me  as  I  hoped  from  her. 


Nee  vos,  dulcissima  mundi 


Nomina,  vos,  Mus<e,  liber  fas,  otia,  libri, 
Hortique  sylvceque,  anima  remanente,  relinquam. 

Nor  by  me  e'er  shall  you, 
You,  of  all  names  the  sweetest  and  the  best, 
You,  Muses,  books,  and  liberty,  and  rest; 
You,  gardens,  fields,  and  woods,  forsaken  be, 
As  long  as  life  itself  forsakes  not  me. 

But  this  is  a  very  pretty  ejaculation.  Because  I  have  concluded 
all  the  other  chapters  with  a  copy  of  verses,  I  will  maintain  the 
humour  to  the  last.2' 

26  Here  follow  two  poetical  translations  from  MARTIAL,  Epigrams,  Book  X, 
47  and  96. 


XI. 

EDWARD    HYDE,   EARL    OF   CLAREN- 
DON. 

(1608-1674.) 

ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING, 
ESSAY  III.  —  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  HAPPINESS  WHICH  WE  MAY 

ENJOY    IN   AND    FROM    OURSELVES. 
[Written  in  1669.] 

IT  was  a  very  just  reproach  that  Seneca  charged  the  world  with 
so  many  hundred  years  ago,  and  yet  was  not  more  the  disease  of 
that  than  of  this  age,  that  we  wonder  and  complain  of  the  pride 
and  superciliousness  of  those  who  are  in  place  and  authority  above 
us  :  that  we  cannot  get  an  admittance  to  them  ;  that  they  are 
never  at  leisure  that  we  may  speak  to  them ;  when  (says  he)  we 
are  never  vacant,  never  at  leisure  to  speak  to  ourselves ;  "Audet 
quispiam  de  alterius  superbid  queri  qui  sibi  ipse  nunquam  va- 
cat?"1  and  after  all  complaints  and  murmurs,  the  greatest  and 
the  proudest  of  them  will  be  sometimes  at  leisure,  may  be  some- 
times spoken  with ;  "  aliquando  respexit,  tu  non  inspicere  te  un- 
quam,  non  audire  dignatus  es" ;2  we  can  never  get  an  audience 
of  ourselves,  never  vouchsafe  to  confer  together.  We  are  diligent 
and  curious  enough  to  know  other  men ;  and  it  may  be  charitable 
enough  to  assist  them,  to  inform  their  weakness  by  our  instruc- 
tion, and  to  reform  their  errors  by  our  experience  :  and  all  this 

1  Does  any  one  dare  to  complain  of  the  pride  of  another  who  is  never  at 
leisure  for  himself?  —  SENECA. 

2  He  sometimes  paid  attention  (lit.  looked  back) ;  you  never  deigned  to  look 
•within,  to  listen  to  yourself.  —  SENECA. 

198 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  199 

without  giving  one  moment  to  look  into  our  own,  never  make  an 
inspection  into  ourselves,  nor  ask  one  of  those  questions  of  our- 
selves which  we  are  ready  to  administer  to  others,  and  thereby 
imagine  that  we  have  a  perfect  knowledge  of  them.  We  live  with 
other  men,  and  to  other  men  ;  neither  with  nor  to  ourselves.  We 
may  sometimes  be  at  home,  left  to  ourselves',  when  others  are 
weary  of  us,  and  we  are  weary  of  being  with  them ;  but  we  do 
not  dwell  at  home,  have  no  commerce,  no  conversation  with  our- 
selves, nay,  we  keep  spies  about  us  that  we  may  not  have ;  and  if 
we  feel  a  suggestion,  hear  an  importunate  call  from  within,  we  di- 
vert it  by  company  or  quiet  it  with  sleep  ;  and  when  we  wake,  no 
man  runs  faster  from  an  enemy  than  we  do  from  ourselves,  get  to 
our  friends  that  we  may  not  be  with  ourselves.  This  is  not  only 
an  epidemical  disease  that  spreads  everywhere,  but  effected  and 
purchased  at  as  great  a  price  as  most  other  of  our  diseases,  with 
the  expense  of  all  our  precious  time  ;  one  moment  of  which  we  are 
not  willing  to  bestow  upon  ourselves,  though  it  would  make  the 
remainder  of  it  more  useful  to  us,  and  to  others  upon  whom  we 
prodigally  consume  it,  without  doing  good  to  them  or  ourselves  : 
whereas,  if  we  would  be  conversant  with  ourselves,  and  as  ingenu- 
ous and  impartial  in  that  conversation  as  we  pretend  to  be  with 
other  men,  we  should  find  that  we  have  very  much  of  that  at  home 
by  us,  which  we  take  wonderful  unnecessary  pains  to  get  abroad ; 
and  that  we  have  much  of  that  in  our  own  disposal,  which  we  en- 
deavour to  obtain  from  others ;  and  possess  ourselves  of  that  happi- 
ness from  ourselves,  whether  it  concerns  our  ambition  or  any  other 
of  our  most  exorbitant  passions  or  affections,  which  more  provoke 
and  less  satisfy  by  resorting  to  other  men ;  who  are  either  not  will- 
ing to  gratify  us  or  not  able  to  comply  with  our  desires ;  and  the 
trouble  and  agony,  which  for  the  most  part  accompanies  those 
disappointments,  proceed  merely  from  our  not  beginning  with 
ourselves  before  we  repair  to  others. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  and  end  of  this  discourse,  to  raise  such 
seraphical  notions  of  the  vanity  and  pleasures  of  this  world,  as 
if  they  were  not  worthy  to  be  considered,  or  could  have  no 


200  EDWARD  HYDE. 

relish  with  virtuous  and  pious  men.  They  take  very  unprofitable 
pains,  who  endeavour  to  persuade  men  that  they  are  obliged  wholly 
to  despise  this  world  and  all  that  is  in  it,  even  whilst  they  them- 
selves live  here  :  God  hath  not  taken  all  that  pains  in  forming  and 
framing  and  furnishing  and  adorning  this  world,  that  they  who 
were  made  by  him"  to  live  in  it  should  despise  it ;  it  will  be  enough 
if  they  do  not  love  it  so  immoderately,  to  prefer  it  before  Him 
who  made  it :  nor  shall  we  endeavour  to  extend  the  notions  of  the 
Stoic  philosophers,  and  to  stretch  them  farther  by  the  help  of 
Christian  precepts,  to  the  extinguishing  all  those  affections  and 
passions,  which  are  and  will  always  be  inseparable  from  human 
nature ;  and  which  it  were  to  be  wished  that  many  Christians 
could  govern  and  suppress  and  regulate,  as  well  as  many  of  those 
heathen  philosophers  used  to  do.  As  long  as  the  world  lasts,  and 
honour  and  virtue  and  industry  have  reputation  in  the  world,  there 
will  be  ambition  and  emulation  and  appetite  in  the  best  and  most 
accomplished  men  who  live  in  it ;  if  there  should  not  be,  more 
barbarity  and  vice  and  wickedness  would  cover  every  nation  of 
the  world,  than  it  yet  suffers  under.  If  wise  and  honest  and 
virtuously-disposed  men  quit  the  field,  and  leave  the  world  to  the 
pillage,  and  the  manners  of  it  to  the  deformation  of  persons 
dedicated  to  rapine,  luxury,  and  injustice,  how  savage  must  it  grow 
in  half  an  age  !  nor  will  the  best  princes  be  able  to  govern  and 
preserve  their  subjects,  if  the  best  men  be  without  ambition  and 
desire  to  be  employed  and  trusted  by  them.  The  end  therefore 
of  this  speculation  into  ourselves,  and  conversation  with  ourselves, 
is  that  we  may  make  our  journey  towards  that  which  we  do  pro- 
pose with  the  more  success ;  that  we  may  be  discreet  in  proposing 
reasonable  designs,  and  then  pursue  them  by  reasonable  ways ; 
foresee  all  the  difficulties  which  are  probable  to  fall  out,  so  we 
may  prevent  or  avoid  them  ;  since  we  may  be  sure  to  master  and 
avoid  them  to  -a  great  degree  by  foreseeing  them,  and  as  sure  to 
be  confounded  by  them,  if  they  fall  upon  us  without  foresight.  In 
a  word,  it  is  not  so  to  consult  with  ourselves,  as  to  consult  with 
nobody  else  ;  or  to  dispose  us  to  prefer  our  own  judgment  before 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  201 

any  other  man's  :  but  first,  by  an  impartial  conference  with  our- 
selves, we  may  understand  first  our  own  mind,  what  it  is  we  would 
have,  and  why  we  would  have  it,  before  we  consult  with  others 
which  way  to  compass  it,  that  we  may  set  both  the  matter  we 
desire  and  the  manner  of  obtaining  it  before  our  own  eyes,  and 
spend  our  passions  upon  ourselves  in  the  disquisition. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  when  we  are  prodigal  of  nothing  else,  when 
we  are  over-thrifty  of  many  things  which  we  may  well  spare,  we 
are  very  prodigal  of  our  time,  which  is  the  only  precious  jewel  of 
which  we  cannot  be  too  thrifty,  because  we  look  upon  it  as  nothing 
worth,  and  that  makes  us  not  care  how  we  spend  it.  The  labouring 
man  and  the  artificer  knows  what  every  hour  of  his  time  is  worth, 
what  it  will  yield  him,  and  parts  not  with  it  but  for  the  full  value  : 
they  are  only  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  who  should  know  best 
how  to  use  it,  that  think  it  only  fit  to  be  cast  away ;  and  their  not 
knowing  how  to  set  a  true  value  upon  this,  is  the  true  cause  of 
the  wrong  estimate  they  make  of  all  other  things :  and  their 
ignorance  of  that  proceeds  only  from  their  holding  no  correspon- 
dence with  themselves,  or  thinking  at  all  before  they  begin  their 
journey,  before  they  violently  set  their  affections  upon  this  or  that 
object,  until  they  find  they  are  out  of  the  way,  and  meet  with 
false  guides  to  carry  them  further  out.  We  should  find  much 
ease  in  our  pursuits,  and  probably  much  better  success  in  our 
attempts  and  enterprises  in  the  world,  if,  before  we  are  too  solici- 
tous and  set  our  heart  upon  any  design,  we  would  well  weigh  and 
consider  the  true  value  of  the  thing  we  desire,  whether  it  be 
indeed  worth  all  that  trouble  we  shall  be  put  to,  and  all  the  time 
we  are  like  to  spend  in  the  obtaining  it,  and  upon  it  after  we  have 
obtained  it :  if  this  inquisition  doth  not  divert  us,  as  it  need  not  to 
do,  it  will  the  better  prepare  and  dispose  us  to  be  satisfied  after 
we  have  it,  whereas  nothing  is  more  usual  than  for  men  who  suc- 
ceed in  their  most  impatient  pretences,  to  be  more  unsatisfied 
with  their  success  than  they  were  before ;  it  is  not  worth  what 
they  thought  or  were  persuaded  it  would  be,  so  that  their  appe- 
tite is  not  at  all  allayed,  nor  their  gratitude  provoked,  by  the  obli- 


202  EDWARD  HYDE. 

gation ;  a  little  previous  consideration  would  have  better  fitted 
the  mind  to  contentedness  upon  the  issue,  or  diverted  it  from 
affecting  what  would  not  be  acceptable  when  obtained.  In  the 
next  place,  we  should  do  well  prudently  to  consider,  whether  it  be 
probable  that  we  shall  obtain  what  we  desire,  before  we  engage  our 
affections  and  our  passions  too  deeply  in  the  prosecution  of  it ; 
not  that  we  may  not  lawfully  affect  and  prosecute  an  interest  in 
which  it  is  probable  we  may  not  succeed.  Men  who  always  suc- 
ceed in  what  they  go  about,  are  often  the  worse  for  their  success ; 
however,  we  are  not  naturally  delighted  with  repulses,  and  are 
commonly  angry  and  sottishly  offended  with  those  who  obtain  that 
for  themselves  which  we  would  fain  have,  and  as  unreasonably 
with  those  who  favour  them,  though  their  merit  be  above  our  own  ; 
and  therefore,  besides  the  consideration  of  the  probability  that  we 
may  be  disappointed  of  our  end,  we  shall  do  well  to  consider  like- 
wise the  opposition  we  are  like  to  meet  in  the  way,  the  power  of 
those  persons  who  are  like  to  disfavour  our  pretences,  and  whether 
our  exposing  ourselves  to  their  displeasure  may  not  be  a  greater 
damage  than  the  obtaining  all  that  we  desire  will  recompense. 
These  and  the  like  reflections  will  cost  us  very  little  time,  but 
infinitely  advance  and  improve  our  understanding ;  and  if  we  then 
conclude  it  fit  to  proceed,  we  shall  do  it  with  confidence,  and  be 
disturbed  with  no  accident  which  encounters  us,  and  be  prepared 
to  behave  ourselves  decently  upon  the  repulse,  which  oftentimes 
prefers  men  better  than  they  wished ;  a  virtuous  mind  appearing 
with  more  lustre  in  the  rejection  than  in  the  reception  of  good 
turns,  and  consequently  reconciling  him  to  those  who  knew  him 
not  enough  before. 

These  considerations  will  be  most  impartially  and  sincerely 
debated  with  ourselves,  yet  they  may  be  properly  enough  and 
usefully  consulted  with  very  true  and  faithful  friends,  if  indeed  we 
abound  .with  such  treasure.  But  there  is  another  consideration  so 
proper  and  peculiar  for  ourselves,  and  to  be  exactly  weighed  by 
ourselves,  that  the  most  faithful  friend  is  rarely  faithful  enough  to 
be  trusted  enough  in  the  disquisition,  and,  which  is  worst  of  all, 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  203 

we  do  not  wish  or  desire  that  he  should  be  faithful ;  that  is, 
whether  we  are  in  truth  fit  and  worthy  of  the  thing  we  do  affect ; 
if  it  be  an  honour,  whether  it  be  not  too  great  for  us ;  if  it  be  an 
office,  whether  we  are  equal  to  it ;  that  is,  fit  and  capable  to  dis- 
charge and  execute  it,  or  can  make  ourselves  so  by  the  industry 
and  diligence  we  are  like  to  contribute  towards  it :  this  is  the 
examination  we  come  with  least  ingenuity  to,  and  friends  are 
ingenuous  in  assisting  us  in ;  and  yet  is  of  that  importance,  that 
much  of  the  happiness  of  our  life  consists  in  it,  many  having  been 
made  unhappy  and  even  very  miserable  by  preferment,  who  were 
in  good  reputation  without  it.  Tully  makes  it  a  necessary  ingredi- 
ent in,  or  a  necessary  concomitant  of  friendship  itself.  "  Tantitm 
cuique  tribttendum  est,  primum,  quantum  ipse  efficere  possis,  de- 
inde  etiam  quantum  quern  diligas  atque  adjuves,possit  sustinere ;  "  3 
it  is  a  very  imprudent  and  unjust  thing  to  oblige  a  friend  to  do 
that  out  of  his  friendship  to  thee,  which  either  he  cannot  do,  or 
not  without  great  prejudice  to  himself,  but  it  is  an  impudent 
violation  of  friendship,  to  importune  him  to  procure  a  favour  to  be 
conferred  upon  thee  which  thou  canst  not  sustain ;  to  put  the 
command  of  a  ship  into  thy  hand,  when  thou  knowest  neither  the 
compass  nor  the  rudder.  There  are  as  great  incongruities  and 
incapacities  towards  the  execution  of  many  offices,  which  do  not 
appear  so  gross  to  the  first  discovery.  This  scrutiny  cannot  be  so 
rigidly  and  effectually  made  without  well  weighing,  in  the  first 
place,  the  infinite  prejudice  that  befalls  ourselves,  if  we  are  incom- 
petent for  that  place  or  office  which  we  have  by  much  solicitation 
obtained,  and  the  unspeakable  and  irreparable  prejudice  we  have 
brought  upon  our  friends  who  obtained  it  for  us.  How  many 
men  have  we  known,  who,  from  a  reservedness  in  their  nature, 
have  been  thought  to  observe  much,  and  by  saying  little  have  been 
believed  to  know  much  ;  but  when  they  have  got  themselves  into 
an  office,  and  so  been  compelled  to  speak  and  direct,  have  ap- 
peared weak  and  ignorant,  and  incapable  of  performing  their  duty  ; 

8  So  much  must  be  given  to  each  one,  first,  as  you  yourself  can  perform, 
next,  also,  as  he  -whom  you  love  and  aid  can  sustain.  —  ClCERO. 


204  EDWARD  HYDE. 

and  so  must  either  be  removed,  to  their  own  shame  and  reproach, 
or  be  continued,  to  the  public  detriment  and  dishonour  ?  How 
much  better  had  it  been  for  such  men  to  have  remained  unknown 
and  secure  under  the  shadow  of  their  friends'  good  opinion,  than 
to  have  been  exposed  to  the  light,  and  made  known  only  by  the 
discovery  of  their  incredible  ignorance  !  We  have  known  many 
men  who,  in  a  place  to  which  they  have  been  unhappily  promoted, 
have  appeared  scandalously  insufficient ;  but  being  removed  to 
another  have  discharged  it  with  notable  abilities  :  yet  there  was 
nothing  new  in  himself;  if  he  had  asked  advice  of  himself,  he 
would  have  known  all  that  hath  fallen  out  since  so  much  to  his 
prejudice.  He  who  hath  credit  with  his  prince,  or  with  his  friend, 
to  prefer  or  recommend  a  man  to  his  near  and  entire  trust,  hath 
a  great  trust  himself  reposed  in  him,  which  he  is  obliged  to  dis- 
charge with  the  utmost  circumspection  and  fidelity ;  and  if  he  be 
swayed  by  the  confidence  and  importunity,  or  corrupted  by  his 
own  affection,  and  recommends  thee  to  an  employment,  which 
when  thou  art  possessed  of  thou  canst  not  discharge,  with  what 
confusion  must  he  look  upon  him  whom  he  hath  deceived  and 
betrayed,  or  can  he  ever  look  again  to  be  depended  upon  or 
advised  with  upon  the  like  affair?  Doing  good  offices  and  good 
turns  (as  men  call  it)  looks  like  the  natural  effect  of  a  noble  and 
a  generous  nature.  Indeed  the  inclination  to  it  is  an  argument  of 
generosity ;  but  a  precipitate  entering  upon  the  work  itself,  and 
embracing  all  opportunities  to  gratify  the  pretences  of  unwary 
men,  is  an  evidence  of  a  light  and  easy  nature,  disposed,  at  other 
men's  charges,  to  get  himself  well  spoken  of. 

They  who  revolve  these  particulars,  cannot  but  think  them 
worthy  a  very  serious  examination,  and  must  discern  that,  by 
entering  into  this  strict  consultation  with  themselves  in  or  before 
the  beginning  of  any  business,  they  shall  prevent  much  trouble 
and  labour  which  they  shall  not  be  able  afterwards  to  avoid  :  nor 
can  they  prudently  or  so  successfully  consult  with  others,  before 
they  first  deliberate  with  themselves  the  very  method  and  manner 
of  communicating  with  another,  how  much  a  friend  soever,  what 


ESSAYS,  MORAL   AND  ENTERTAINING.  205 

concerns  one's  self  requiring  as  much  consideration  as  the  matter 
itself.  But  there  is  another  benefit  and  advantage  that  results 
from  this  intercourse  and  acquaintance  with  ourselves,  more  con- 
siderable than  anything  which  hath  been  said,  which  is,  that  from 
this  communication  he  takes  more  care  to  cultivate  and  improve 
himself,  that  he  may  be  equal  and  worthy  of  that  trust  which  he 
reposes  in  himself,  and  fit  to  consult  with  and  govern  himself  by ; 
he  gets  as  much  information  from  books  and  wise  men,  as  may 
enable  him  to  answer  and  determine  those  doubtful  questions 
which  may  arise ;  he  extinguishes  that  choler  and  prejudice  which 
would  interrupt  him  in  hearing,  and  corrupt  him  in  judging  what 
he  hears.  It  is  a  notable  injunction  that  Seneca  imposes,  who 
knew  as  well  as  any  man  what  man  could  bring  himself  to  "  Dum 
te  efficis  eum,  coram  quo  peccare  non  audeas ;  "*  the  truth  is,  he 
hath  too  little  reverence  for  himself,  who  dares  do  that  in  his  own 
presence,  which  he  would  be  ashamed,  or  not  dare  to  do  before 
another  man ;  and  it  is  for  want  of  acquaintance  with  ourselves 
and  revolving  the  dignity  of  our  creation,  that  we  are  without  that 
reverence.  Who,  that  doth  consider  how  near  he  is  of  kin  to  God 
himself,  and  how  excellently  he  is  qualified  by  him  to  judge  aright 
of  all  the  delusions  and  appearances  of  the  world,  if  he  will 
employ  those  faculties  he  hath  adorned  him  with ;  that  nobody  is 
able  to  deceive  him,  if  he  doth  not  concur  and  contribute  to  the 
deceiving  himself:  I  say,  who  can  consider  and  weigh  this,  and 
at  the  same  time  bury  all  those  faculties  of  the  discerning  soul  in 
sensual  pleasures,  laziness,  and  senseless  inactivity  and  as  much  as 
in  his  power,  and  God  knows  there  is  too  much  in  his  power,  to 
level  himself  with  the  beasts  that  perish  ?  It  is  a  foolish  excuse 
we  make  upon  all  occasions  for  ourselves  and  other  men,  in  our 
laboured  and  exalted  acts  of  folly  and  madness,  that  we  can  be  no 
wiser  than  God  hath  made  us,  as  if  the  defects  in  our  will  were 
defects  in  his  providence ;  when  in  truth  God  hath  given  us  all  that 
we  will  make  ourselves  capable  of,  that  we  will  receive  from  him. 

4  Whikt  thou  makest  thyself  one  in  whose  presence  thou  dare  not  sin.  — • 
SENECA. 


206  EDWARD   HYDE. 

He  hath  given  us  life,  that  is  time,  to  make  ourselves  learned,  to 
make  ourselves  wise,  to  make  us  discern  and  judge  of  all  the 
mysteries  of  the  world  :  if  we  will  bestow  this  time,  which  would 
supply  us  with  wisdom  and  knowledge,  in  wine  and  women,  which 
corrupt  the  little  understanding  that  nature  hath  given  us ;  if  we 
will  barter  it  away  for  skill  in  horses,  dogs,  and  hawks  ;  and  if  we 
will  throw  it  away  in  play  and  gaming  ;  it  is  from  our  own  villany 
that  we  are  fools,  and  have  rejected  the  effects  of  his  providence. 
It  is  no  wiser  an  allegation,  that  our  time  is  our  own,  and  we  may 
use  it  as  we  please  :  there  is  nothing  so  much  our  own  that  we 
may  use  it  as  we  please  :  we  cannot  use  our  money,  which  is  as 
much,  if  not  more,  our  own  than  anything  we  have,  to  raise 
rebellion  against  our  prince,  or  to  hire  men  to  do  mischief  to  our 
neighbours ;  we  cannot  use  our  bodies,  which,  if  anything,  are 
our  own,  in  duels  or  any  unlawful  enterprise  :  and  why  should  we 
then  believe  that  we  have  so  absolute  and  sovereign  a  disposal  of 
our  time,  that  we  may  choose  whether  we  will  dispose  it  to  any- 
thing or  no  ?  It  were  to  be  wished  that  all  men  did  believe,  which 
they  have  all  great  reason  to  do,  that  the  consumption  and  spend- 
ing of  our  time  will  be  the  great  inquisition  of  the  last  and  terrible 
day :  when  there  shall  be  a  more  strict  enquiry  how  the  most 
dissolute  person,  the  most  debauched  bankrupt,  spent  his  time, 
than  how  he  spent  his  estate ;  no  doubt  it  will  then  manifestly 
appear  that  our  precious  time  was  not  lent  to  us  to  do  nothing 
with,  or  to  be  spent  upon  that  which  is  worse  than  nothing ;  and 
we  shall  not  be  more  confounded  with  anything,  than  to  find  that 
there  is  a  perfect  register  kept  of  all  that  we  did  in  that  time  ; 
and  that  when  we  have  scarce  remembered  the  morrow  what  we 
did  yesterday,  there  is  a  diary  in  which  nothing  we  did  is  left  out, 
and  as  much  notice  taken  when  we  did  nothing  at  all.  This  will 
be  a  sad  animadversion  when  it  is  too  late,  and  when  probably  it 
may  appear  that  the  very  idle  man,  he  who  hath  never  employed 
himself,  may  be  in  a  very  little  better  condition  than  he  who  hath 
been  worst  employed  ;  when  idleness  shall  be  declared  to  be  a 
species  of  wickedness,  and  doing  nothing  to  be  the  activity  of  a 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND   ENTERTAINING.  207 

beast.  There  cannot  therefore  be  too  serious  or  too  early  a  reflec- 
tion upon  the  good  husbandry  of  this  precious  talent,  which  we 
are  entrusted  with,  not  to  be  laid  out  in  vain  pleasures  whereof  we 
are  ashamed  as  soon  as  we  have  enjoyed  them,  but  in  such  profit- 
able exchanges  that  there  may  be  some  record  of  our  industry,  if 
there  be  none  of  our  getting. 

The  truth  is,  if  incogitance5  and  inadvertence,  not  thinking  at 
all,  not  considering  anything  (which  is  degrading  ourselves  as  much 
as  is  in  our  power  from  being  men,  by  renouncing  the  faculties 
of  a  reasonable  soul)  were  not  our  mortal  disease,  it  might  be 
believed  that  the  consumption  of  our  time  proceeds  from  the 
contempt  we  have  of  wisdom  and  virtue ;  for  in  order  to  anything 
else  we  employ  it  well  enough.  How  can  we  pretend  that  we 
desire  to  be  wise,  when  we  do  no  one  thing  that  is  in  order  to  it ; 
or  that  we  love  virtue,  when  we  do  not  cultivate  any  one  affection 
that  would  advance  it,  nor  subdue  any  one  passion  that  destroys 
it?  We  see  the  skill  and  perfection  in  the  meanest  and  lowest 
trade  is  obtained  by  industry  and  instruction  and  observation,  and 
that  with  all  that  application  very  much  time  is  necessary  to  it; 
and  can  we  believe  that  wisdom,  which  is  the  greatest  perfection 
and  highest  operation  of  the  soul  can  be  got  without  industry  and 
labour?  Can  we  hope  to  find  gold  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
when  we  dig  almost  to  the  centre  of  it  to  find  lead  and  tin  and  the 
coarser  metals?  It  is  very  wonderful  if  it  be  not  very  ridiculous, 
to  see  a  man  take  great  pains  to  learn  to  dance,  and  not  to  be  at 
leisure  to  learn  to  read  ;  that  man  should  set  a  very  high  esteem 
upon  the  decent  motion  and  handsome  figure  of  the  body,  and 
undervalue  the  mind  so  much  as  not  to  think  it  worth  any  pains 
or  consideration  to  improve  the  faculties  thereof,  or  to  contribute 
to  its  endowments ;  and  yet  all  men's  experience  supplies  them 
with  evidence  enough,  that  the  excellent  symmetry  of  the  body,  a 
very  handsome  outside  of  a  man,  doth  too  frequently  expose  men 
to  derision  and  notorious  contempt,  when  so  gross  defects  of  the 
mind  are  discovered,  as  make  the  other  beauty  less  agreeable  by 
5  lack  of  thought. 


208  EDWARD  HYDE. 

being  more  remarkable  :  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  the  beauty  of 
the  mind  doth  more  frequently  reconcile  the  eyes  and  ears  of  all 
men  to  the  most  unpromising  countenances,  and  to  persons  noth- 
ing beholden  to  nature  for  any  comeliness ;  yet  the  wisdom  and 
gravity  of  their  words  in  persuading  and  convincing,  and  the 
sincerity  and  virtue  of  their  actions,  extort  an  esteem  and  rever- 
ence from  all  kind  of  men,  that  no  comely  and  graceful  outside 
of  a  man  could  ever  attain  to.  It  is  not  to  be  wished  that  men 
took  less  care  of  their  bodies  than  they  do ;  they  cannot  be  too 
solicitous  to  preserve  their  health,  and  to  confirm  it,  by  preventing 
those  diseases  which  the  excess  and  corruption  of  humours  are 
naturally  the  causes  of,  with  timely  physic  and  seasonable  applica- 
tion of  remedies,  and,  above  all,  by  strict  and  wholesome  diet ; 
health  is  so  inestimable  a  blessing  and  benefit,  that  we  cannot 
take  too  much  pains,  nor  study  too  much,  to  obtain  and  preserve 
it :  but  the  grief  is,  that  the  whole  care  is  laid  out  for  the  body, 
and  none  at  all  for  the  mind  ;  that  we  are  jealous  of  every  altera- 
tion in  our  constitution,  of  every  light  indisposition  of  our  body, 
that  we  too  commonly  apply  cures  when  there  are  no  diseases, 
and  cause  the  sickness  we  would  prevent :  when,  at  the  same 
time,  there  are  twenty  visible  diseases  and  distempers  of  our  mind, 
which  we  never  look  after  nor  take  care  of,  though  they  would  be 
more  easily  cured  than  the  other,  and  being  cured,  would  yield 
that  infinite  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  the  body,  that  sickness 
itself  could  not  deprive  it  of.  Dost  thou  find  laziness  and  excess 
of  sleep  affect  thy  body  ?  And  dost  thou  find  exercise  and  mod- 
erate labour  revive  thy  spirits,  and  increase  thy  appetite  ?  Examine 
thy  mind,  whether  it  hath  not  too  much  emptiness,  whether  it  can 
cogitandi  ferre  laborem,  —  whether  it  can  bear  the  fatigue  of 
thinking,  —  and  produce  any  conclusion  from  thence ;  and  then 
administer  a  fit  diet  of  books  to  it,  and  let  it  take  air  and  exercise 
in  honest  and  cheerful  conversation,  with  men  that  can  descend 
and  bow  their  natures  and  their  understandings  to  the  capacity 
and  to  the  indisposition  and  weakness  of  other  men.  A  sour  and 
morose  companion  is  as  unnatural  a  prescription  to  such  a  patient, 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  209 

as  the  exercise  of  tennis  is  to  a  man  who  hath  broken  a  vein, 
when  any  violent  motion  may  be  mortal.  If  thy  riiind  be  loose, 
and  most  delighted  with  vain  and  unclean  discourses  and  unchaste 
desires,  prescribe  it  a  diet  of  contemplation  upon  the  purity  of 
the  nature  of  God,  and  the  injunction  he  hath  given  us  to  live  by, 
and  the  frequent  conquest  men  have  made  thereby  upon  their 
own  most  corrupt  and  depraved  affections;  and  let  it  have  its 
exercise  and  recreation  with  men  of  that  severity,  that  restrain  all 
ill  discourse  by  the  gravity  of  their  presence,  and  yet  of  that 
candour  as  may  make  them  agreeable  to  those  who  must  by 
degrees  be  brought  to  love  them,  and  to  find  another  kind  of 
pleasure,  yet  pleasure  that  hath  a  greater  relish  in  their  company 
than  in  those  they  have  been  most  accustomed  to.  Men  give 
over  the  diseases  of  the  mind  as  incurable ;  call  them  infirmities 
of  nature,  which  cannot  be  subdued,  hardly  corrected ;  or  sub- 
stantial parts  of  nature,  that  cannot  be  cut  off,  or  divided  from 
our  humanity ;  that  anger  is  the  result  of  a  generous  nature,  that 
will  not,  ought  not  to  submit  to  injuries  and  affronts ;  that  lust  is 
so  inseparable  from  our  nature,  that  nothing  but  want  of  health 
can  allay  it ;  that  there  is  no  other  way  to  cure  the  disease  but  to 
kill  the  patient,  that  it  proceeds  not  from  any  virtuous  habit  of  the 
mind,  where  these  natural  affections  and  appetites  do  not  prevail, 
but  from  some  depraved  constitution  of  the  body,  which  stifles 
and  suppresses  those  desires,  for  want  of  that  moisture  and  heat 
that  should  nourish  them,  and  that  conscience  hath  no  more  to 
do  in  the  conquest,  than  courage  hath  an  operation  in  him  who 
takes  an  enemy  prisoner  who  lies  prostrate  at  his  feet :  whereas 
all  those,  and  other  diseases  of  the  mind,  for  diseases  they  are, 
are  much  more  curable  than  those  of  the  body,  and  so  much  the 
more  as  they  are  most  subject  to  our  own  administration ;  when 
we  must  resort  to  the  skill  and  ability  of  other  men  to  devise  and 
compound  proper  remedies  for  the  other  cure.  Many  accidents 
of  heat  or  cold  or  diet,  or  the  very  remedies  prescribed,  very 
often  make  the  diseases  of  the  body  incurable,  and  the  recovery 
impossible ;  whereas  the  application  to  the  mind,  though  unskil- 


210  EDWARD  HYDE. 

fully  and  unseasonably  made,  does  no  harm  if  it  does  no  good, 
and  the  mind  remains  still  as  capable  of  the  same  or  other 
medicines  as  it  was  before.  Nor  is  there  any  enormous  or  unruly 
infirmity  so  annexed  to  or  rooted  in  our  nature,  but  that  the  like 
hath  been  frequently  severed  from  or  eradicated  out  of  it,  by  vir- 
tuous and  conscientious  precepts  and  practice,  and  every  man's 
observation  and  experience  supplies  him  with  examples  enough  of 
men  far  from  sobriety,  who,  to  comply  with  some  infirmity,  have 
forborne  all  wine  and  intemperance  for  some  months ;  and  of 
others  of  no  restrained  appetites,  who  upon  the  obligation  of  a 
promise  or  virtuous  resolution,  have  abstained  a  longer  time  from 
any  acts  of  uncleanness ;  and  whosoever  can  impose  such  a  law 
upon  himself  for  so  many  months,  can  do  the  same  for  so  many 
years ;  a  firm  and  magnanimous  resolution  can  exercise  that 
discipline  upon  the  mind  that  it  shall  never  make  any  excursions 
from  reason  and  good  behaviour.  If  they  can  be  brought  but 
laborem  ferre  cogitandi,  the  worst  is  over,  and  their  recovery  is 
not  desperate. 

Since  then  it  is  and  may  be  made  evident  enough  that  the 
greatest  infirmities  and  deformities  of  the  mind  may  be  reformed 
and  rectified  by  industry  and  reasonable  applications,  there  can  be 
but  one  reason  why  there  is  so  little  used  in  those  cases,  since  all 
men  desire  to  be  wise,  or  to  be  reputed  wise ;  and  that  is,  that 
there  is  no  need  of  it :  nature's  store  and  provision  is  sufficient ; 
conversation  with  witty  men,  and  an  ordinary  observation  of  the 
current  and  conduct  of  business,  will  make  men  as  wise  as  they 
need  to  be ;  and  the  affectation  of  books  doth  but  introduce 
pedantry  into  the  manners  of  men,  and  make  them  impertinent 
and  troublesome  :  that  men  of  great  learning  in  books  are  fre- 
quently found  to  be  the  most  incompetent  judges  or  advisers  in  the 
most  important  transactions  of  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  of  the 
interest  of  states.  And  by  this  unreasonable  jolly  discourse,  and 
contempt  of  the  learned  languages,  there  seems  to  be  a  combina- 
tion entered  into  against  learning,  and  against  any  such  education 
as  may  dispose  them  to  it ;  as  if  the  excellent  endowments  of 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  211 

nature  would  be  eclipsed  by  reading  books,  and  would  hinder  them 
from  learning  more  in  the  company  they  might  keep  than  they  can 
obtain  from  other,  and  that  the  other  method  makes  them  men 
much  sooner :  and  upon  this  ground,  which  hath  gotten  too  much 
countenance  in  the  world,  the  universities  and  inns  of  court  which 
have  been  the  seminaries  out  of  which  our  ancestors  have  grown 
to  be  able  to  serve  their  country  with  great  reputation  and  success, 
are  now  declined  as  places  which  keep  hopeful  youth  too  long  boys, 
and  infect  them  with  formalities  and  impertinent  knowledge,  of 
which  they  shall  have  little  use,  and  send  them  out  late  and  less 
prepared  for  and  inclined  to  those  generous  qualifications,  which 
are  most  like  to  raise  their  fortunes  and  their  reputations.  Which 
sure  is  a  very  great  error,  and  hath  been  the  source  from  whence 
many  mischiefs  have  flowed.  And  to  speak  first  of  this  extolled 
breeding  in  good  company  and  travel  into  foreign  parts  before 
they  know  any  thing  of  their  own  country ;  and  getting  the  vice 
and  the  language  of  that,  before  they  can  secure  themselves  from 
the  one,  or  understand  their  own  native  tongue  ;  we  have  the 
knowledge  and  experience  of  many  who  have,  indeed,  the  confi- 
dence and  presumption  of  men,  but  retain  the  levity  and  folly  of 
children :  and  if  they  are  able  to  disguise  those  weaknesses,  and 
appear  in  their  behaviour  and  discourse  earlier  men  than  others  of 
their  age  seem  to  be  (as  it  many  times  falls  out,  especially  in  men 
endowed  with  any  principles  of  modesty,)  yet  those  very  early 
men  decay  apace,  for  want  of  nourishment  at  the  roots,  and  we  too 
frequently  see  those  who  seem  men  at  twenty  years  of  age,  when 
the  gaiety  of  their  youth  decays,  and  themselves  grow  weary  of 
those  exercises  and  vanities  which  then  became  them,  become 
boys  at  thirty  ;  having  no  supply  of  parts  for  business,  or  grave 
and  sober  conversation,  they  then  grow  out  of  love  with  themselves, 
and  too  soon  lament  those  defects  and  impotency  in  themselves, 
which  nothing  but  some  degree  of  learning  and  acquaintance  with 
books  could  have  prevented.  And  to  say  that  they  can  fall  to  it 
afterwards,  and  recover  the  time  they  have  lost  when  they  will,  is 
no  more  reasonable  (though  there  have  been  some  very  rare 


212  EDWARD  HYDE. 

examples  of  such  industry)  than  to  imagine  that  a  man,  after  he  is 
forty  years  of  age,  may  learn  to  dance  as  well  as  if  he  had  begun 
it  sooner.  He  who  loves  not  books  before  he  comes  to  thirty 
years  of  age,  will  hardly  love  them  enough  afterwards  to  under- 
stand them.  The  conversation  with  wise  and  good  men  cannot  be 
overvalued ;  it  forms  the  mind  and  understanding  for  noble  and 
heroical  undertakings,  and  is  much  to  be  preferred  before  the  mere 
learning  of  books,  in  order  to  be  wise ;  but  where  a  good  founda- 
tion of  the  knowledge  and  understanding  of  books  is  first  laid, 
to  support  the  excellent  superstructure  of  such  conversation,  the 
advance  must  be  made  much  more  advantageously,  than  when 
nothing  but  the  ordinary  endowments  of  nature  are  brought  to 
be  cultivated  by  conversation  ;  which  is  commonly  chosen  with  men 
of  the  same  talents,  who  gratify  one  another  with  believing  that 
they  want  not  any  extraordinary  improvement,  and  so  join  together 
in  censuring  and  condemning  what  they  do  not  understand,  and 
think  that  men  have  only  better  fortune  than  they  who  have  got 
credit  without  being  in  any  degree  wiser  than  themselves. 

It  is  very  true,  there  have  been  very  extraordinary  men  in  all 
nations,  who,  by  their  great  experience,  and  a  notable  vivacity  of 
spirit,  have  not  only  attained  to  eminent  promotion,  but  have  been 
exceedingly  worthy  of  it ;  albeit  they  have  been  upon  the  matter 
illiterate,  as  to  the  learning  of  books  and  the  learned  languages ; 
but  then  they  have  been  eminently  industrious,  who,  having  had 
the  good  fortune  to  be  educated  in  constant  labour,  under  wise  and 
experienced  men,  have,  by  indefatigable  pains  and  observation, 
gotten  the  learning  of  business  without  the  learning  of  books,  and 
cannot  properly  be  accounted  illiterate,  though  they  know  little 
Latin  or  Greek.  We  speak  of  books  and  learning,  not  of  the  lan- 
guage in  which  they  are  writ.  The  French  and  the  Italian  and 
the  Spanish  have  many  excellent  books  of  all  kinds ;  and  they 
who  are  well  versed  in  those  languages,  may  be  very  learned, 
though  they  know  no  others  :  and  the  truth  is,  the  French,  whether 
by  the  fertility  of  their  language,  or  the  happy  industry  of  many 
excellent  persons,  have  translated  most  good  authors  both  of  the 


ESSAYS,   MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  213 

Greek  and  Latin,  with  that  admirable  facility  that  little  of  the 
spirit  and  vigour  even  of  the  style  of  the  best  writers  is  dimin- 
ished ;  an  advantage  the  English  industry  and  curiosity  hath  not 
yet  brought  home  to  that  nation  :  they  who  have  performed  that 
office  hitherto,  for  the  most  part,  having  done  it  for  profit,  and  to 
live,  without  any  delight  in  the  pains  they  take  ;  and  though  they 
may  have  had  some  competent  knowledge  of  the  language  out  of 
which  they  have  translated,  have  been  very  far  from  understanding 
their  own  mother-tongue,  and  being  versed  in  the  fruitful  produc- 
tions of  the  English  language.'  But  though  learning  may  be  thus 
attained  by  many  nations  in  their  own  proper  dialect,  and  the  lan- 
guage of  their  own  country,  yet  few  men  who  take  the  pains  to 
search  for  it  in  their  own,  but  have  the  curiosity  to  look  into  the 
original,  and  are  conversant  in  those  which  are  still,  and  still  will 
be,  called  the  learned  languages ;  nor  is  yet  any  man  eminent  for 
knowledge  and  learning  that  was  not  conversant  in  other  tongues 
besides  his  own ;  and  it  may  be,  those  two  necessary  sciences, 
that  is,  the  principles  of  them,  grammar  and  logic,  can  very  hardly 
be  so  well  and  conveniently  taught  and  understood  as  by  Latin. 
It  shall  serve  my  turn,  and  I  shall  willingly  comply  with  and  gratify 
our  beloved  modern  education,  if  they  take  the  pains  to  read  good 
books  in  that  language  they  understand  best  and  like  most ;  I  had 
almost  said,  if  they  will  read  any  books,  be  so  much  alone  as  read- 
ing employs ;  if  they  will  take  as  much  pains  to  be  wise  and 
polish  their  minds,  as  they  do  to  order  and  dispose  their  clothes 
and  their  hair;  if  they  will  put  that  constraint  upon  themselves 
in  order  to  be  learned,  as  they  do  to  attain  to  a  perfection  in  any 
bodily  exercise  ;  and,  lastly,  which  is  worth  all  the  rest,  if  they  will 
as  heartily  endeavour  to  please  God,  as  they  do  those  for  whom 
they  have  no  great  affection,  every  great  man  whose  favour  they 
solicit,  and  affect  being  good  Christians  as  much  as  they  do  to  be 
fine  gentlemen,  they  shall  find  their  labour  as  much  less,  as  their 
reward  and  recompense  will  be  greater.  If  they  will  not  do  this, 
they  must  not  take  it  ill  if  it  be  believed  that  they  are  without 
knowledge  that  their  souls  are  to  outlive  their  bodies ;  and  that 


214  EDWARD  HYDE. 

they  do  not  so  much  wish  to  go  to  Heaven,  as  to  get  the  next  bet 
at  play,  or  to  win  the  next  horse-race  they  are  to  run. 

To  conclude :  If  books  and  industry  will  not  contribute  to  their 
being  wise,  and  to  their  salvation,  they  will  receive  from  it  (which 
they  value  more)  pleasure  and  refreshment  in  this  world;  they 
will  have  less  melancholy  in  the  distress  of  their  fortune,  less  anx- 
iety in  the  mortification  of  sickness ;  they  will  not  so  much  com- 
plain for  want  of  company,  when  all  their  companions  forsake 
them ;  their  age  will  be  less  grievous  unto  them  ;  and  God  may  so 
bless  it,  without  any  intention  of  their  own,  that  such  thoughts 
may  insensibly  insinuate  themselves  into  them,  that  they  may  go 
out  of  the  world  with  less  dismal  apprehensions. .  and  conclude 
their  neglected  lives  with  more  tranquillity  of  spirit,  at  least  not  be 
so  much  terrified  with  the  approach  of  death,  as  men  who  have 
never  entertained  any  sober  thoughts  of  life  have  used  to  be,  and 
naturally  must  be. 


XII. 

SIR   WILLIAM    TEMPLE. 

(1628-1699.) 

ESSAY  UPON'  THE  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING. 
[Written  before  1688.] 

THUS  much  I  thought  might  be  allowed  me  to  say,  for  the 
giving  some  idea  of  what  those  sages  or  learned  men  were,  or 
may  have  been,  who  were  ancients  to  those  that  are  ancients  to  us. 
Now  to  observe  what  these  have  been,  is  more  easy  and  obvious. 
The  most  ancient  Grecians  that  we  are  at  all  acquainted  with, 
after  Lycurgus,  who  was  certainly  a  great  philosopher  as  well  as 
lawgiver,  were  the  seven  sages :  though  the  Court  of  Croesus  is 
said  to  have  been  much  resorted  to  by  the  sophists  of  Greece  in 
the  happy  beginnings  of  his  reign.  And  some  of  these  seven 
seem  to  have  brought  most  of  the  sciences  out  of  Egypt  and 
Phoenica  into  Greece ;  particularly  those  of  astronomy,  astrology, 
geometry,  and  arithmetic.  These  were  soon  followed  by  Pythag- 
oras (who  seems  to  have  introduced  natural  and  moral  philoso- 
phy) and  by  several  of  his-  followers,  both  in  Greece  and  Italy. 
But  of  all  these  there  remains  nothing  in  writing  now  among  us  ; 
so  that  Hippocrates,  Plato,  and  Xenophon,  are  the  first  philoso- 
phers whose  works  have  escaped  the  injuries  of  time.  But  that  we 
may  not  conclude  the  first  writers  we  have  of  the  Grecians  were  the 
first  learned  or  wise  among  them ;  we  shall  find  upon  enquiry  that 
the  more  ancient  sages  of  Greece  appear,  by  the  characters 
remaining  of  them,  to  have  been  much  the  greater  men.  They 
were  generally  princes  or  lawgivers  of  their  countries,  or  at  least 
offered  and  invited  to  be  so,  either  of  their  own  or  of  others,  that 

215 


216  SIX    WILLIAM  TEMPLE. 

desired  them  to  frame  or  reform  their  several  institutions  of  civil 
government.  They  were  commonly  excellent  poets,  and  great 
physicians  :  they  were  so  learned  in  natural  philosophy  that  they 
foretold  not  only  eclipses  in  the  heavens,  but  earthquakes  at  land, 
and  storms  at  sea,  great  droughts,  and  great  plagues,  much  plenty, 
or  much  scarcity  of  certain  sorts  of  fruits  or  grain ;  not  to  men- 
tion the  magical  powers  attributed  to  several  of  them,  to  allay 
storms,  to  raise  gales,  to  appease  commotions  of  people,  to  make 
plagues  cease  ;  which  qualities,  whether  upon  any  ground  of  truth 
or  no,  yet,  if  well  believed,  must  have  raised  them  to  that  strange 
height  they  were  at,  of  common  esteem  and  honour,  in  their  own 
and  succeeding  ages. 

By  all  this  may  be  determined  whether  our  moderns  or  our 
ancients  may  have  had  the  greater  and  the  better  guides,  and 
which  of  them  have  taken  the  greater  pains,  and  with  the  more 
application  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  And,  I  think,  it  is  enough 
to  shew  that  the  advantages  we  have  from  those  we  call  the 
ancients  may  not  be  greater  than  what  they  had  from  those  that 
were  so  to  them. 

But  after  all,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  high  flights  of  wit  and 
knowledge,  like  those  of  power  and  of  empire  in  the  world,  may 
not  have  been  made  by  the  pure  native  force  of  spirit  or  genius, 
in  some  single  men,  rather  than  by  any  derived  strength  among 
them,  however  increased  by  succession ;  and  whether  they  may 
not  have  been  the  achievements  of  nature,  rather  than  the  im- 
provements of  art.  Thus  the  conquests  of  Ninus  and  Semiramis, 
of  Alexander  and  Tamerlane,  which  I  take  to  have  been  the 
greatest  recorded  in  story,  were  at  their  height  in  those  persons  that 
began  them ;  and  so  far  from  being  increased  by  their  successors, 
that  they  were  not  preserved  in  their  extent  and  vigour  by  any  of 
them,  grew  weaker  in  every  hand  they  passed  through,  or  were 
divided  into  many  that  set  up  for  great  Princes,  out  of  several 
small  ruins  of  the  first  empires,  till  they  withered  away  in  time,  or 
were  lost  by  the  change  of  names,  and  forms  of  families  or  govern- 
ments. 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  217 

Just  the  same  fate  seems  to  have  attended  the  highest  flights  ol 
learning  and  of  knowledge,  that  are  upon  our  registers.  Thales, 
Pythagoras,  Democritus,  Hippocrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Epicurus, 
were  the  first  mighty  conquerors  of  ignorance  in  our  world,  and 
made  greater  progress  in  the  several  empires  of  science  than  any 
of  their  successors  have  been  since  able  to  reach.  These  have 
hardly  ever  pretended  more  than  to  learn  what  the  others  taught, 
to  remember  what  they  invented,  and,  not  able  to  compass  that 
itself,  they  have  set  up  for  authors  upon  some  parcels  of  those 
great  stocks,  or  else  have  contented  themselves  only  to  comment 
upon  those  texts,  and  make  the  best  copies  they  could,  after  those 
originals. 

I  have  long  thought  that  the  different  abilities  of  men,  which 
we  call  wisdom  or  prudence  for  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  or 
private  life,  grow  directly  out  of  that  little  grain  of  intellect  or 
good  sense  which  they  bring  with  them  into  our  world ;  and  that 
the  defect  of  it  in  men  comes  from  some  want  in  their  conception 

or  birth. 

Dixitque  seme/  nascentibus  auctor, 
Quicquid  scire  licet.1 

And  though  this  may  be  improved  or  impaired  in  some  degree  by 
accidents  of  education,  of  study,  and  of  conversation  and  busi- 
ness, yet  it  cannot  go  beyond  the  reach  of  its  native  force, 
no  more  than  life  can  beyond  the  period  to  which  it  was  des- 
tined.2 .  .  . 

If  these  speculations  should  be  true,  then  I  know  not  what 
advantages  we  can  pretend  to  modern  knowledge  by  any  we 
receive  from  the  ancients  :  nay  it  is  possible,  men  may. lose  rather 
than  gain  by  them ;  may  lessen  the  force  and  growth  of  their  own 
genius  by  constraining  and  forming  it  upon  that  of  others ;  may 
have  less  knowledge  of  their  own  for  contenting  themselves  with 
that  of  those  before  them.  So  a  man  that  only  translates,  shall 
never  be  a  poet,  nor  a  painter  that  only  copies,  nor  a  swimmer 

1  And  the  Creator  said  once  to  those  born  whatever  they  should  know. 

2  One  line  omitted. 


218  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

that  swims  always  with  bladders.  So  people  that  trust  wholly  to 
others'  charity,  and  without  industry  of  their  own,  will  be  always 
poor. 

Besides,  who  can  tell  whether  learning  may  not  even  weaken 
invention  in  a  man  that  has  great  advantages  from  nature  and 
birth ;  whether  the  weight  and  number  of  so  many  other  men's 
thoughts  and  notions  may  not  suppress  his  own,  or  hinder  the 
motion  and  agitation  of  them,  from  which  all  invention  arises ; 
as  heaping  on  wood,  or  too  many  sticks,  or  too  close  together, 
suppresses,  and  sometimes  quite  extinguishes,  a  little  spark  that 
would  otherwise  have  grown  up  to  a  noble  flame.  The  strength 
of  mind,  as  well  as  of  body,  grows  more  from  the  warmth  of 
exercise,  than  of  cloaths ;  nay,  too  much  of  this  foreign  heat 
rather  makes  men  faint,  and  their  constitutions  tender  or  weaker 
than  they  would  be  without  them.  Let  it  come  about  how  it  will, 
if  we  are  dwarfs,  we  are  still  so  though  we  stand  upon  a  giant's 
shoulders ;  and  even  so  placed,  yet  we  see  less  than  he,  if  we  are 
naturally  shorter  sighted,  or  if  we  do  not  look  as  much  about  us, 
or  if  we  are  dazzled  with  the  height,  which  often  happens  from 
weakness  either  of  heart  or  brain. 

In  the  growth  and  stature  of  souls,  as  well  as  bodies,  the  com- 
mon productions  are  of  indifferent  sizes,  that  occasion  no  gazing, 
nor  no  wonder :  but,  though  there  are  or  have  been  sometimes 
dwarfs  and  sometimes  giants  in  the  world,  yet  it  does  not  follow 
that  there  must  be  such  in  every  age,  nor  in  every  country :  this 
we  can  no  more  conclude,  than  that  there  never  have  been  any, 
because  there  are  none  now,  at  least  in  the  compass  of  our  present 
knowledge  or  enquiry.  As  I  believe  there  may  have  been  giants 
at  some  time,  and  some  place  or  other  in  the  world,  or  such  a 
stature  as  may  not  have  been  equalled  perhaps  again  in  several 
thousands  of  years,  or  in  any  other  parts  ;  so  there  may  be  giants 
in  wit  and  knowledge,  of  so  overgrown  a  size,  as  not  to  be  equalled 
again  in  many  successions  of  ages,  or  any  compass  of  place  or 
country.  Such,  I  am  sure,  Lucretius  esteems  and  describes  Epi- 
curus to  have  been,  and  to  have  risen,  like  a  prodigy  of  invention 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  219 

and  knowledge,  such  as  had  not  been  before,  nor  was  like  to  be 
again ;  and  I  know  not  why  others  of  the  ancients  may  not  be 
allowed  to  have  been  as  great  in  their  kinds,  and  to  have  built  as 
high,  though  upon  different  schemes  or  foundations.  Because 
there  is  a  stag's  head  at  Amboyse  of  a  most  prodigious  size,  and 
a  large  table  at  Memorancy  cut  out  of  the  thickness  of  a  vine- 
stock,  is  it  necessary  that  there  must  be,  every  age,  such  a  stag  in 
every  great  forest,  or  such  a  vine  in  every  large  vineyard ;  or  that 
the  productions  of  nature,  in  any  kind,  must  be  still  alike,  or  some- 
thing near  it,  because  nature  is  still  the  same?  May  there  not 
many  circumstances  concur  to  one  production  that  do  not  to  any 
other  in  one  or  many  ages  ?  In  the  growth  of  a  tree,  there  is 
the  native  strength  of  the  seed,  both  from  the  kind,  and  from  the 
perfections  of  its  ripening,  and  from  the  health  and  vigour  of  the 
plant  that  bore  it :  there  is  the  degree  of  strength  and  excellence 
in  that  vein  of  earth  where  it  first  took  root :  there  is  a  propriety 
of  soil  suited  to  the  kind  of  tree  that  grows  in  it :  there  is  a  great 
favour  or  disfavour  to  its  growth  from  accidents  of  water  and  of 
shelter,  from  the  kindness  or  unkindness  of  seasons,  till  it  be  past 
the  need  or  the  danger  of  them.  All  these,  and  perhaps  many 
others,  joined  with  the  propitiousness  of  climate  to  that  sort  of 
tree,  and  the  length  of  age  it  shall  stand  and  grow,  may  produce 
an  oak,  a  fig  or  a  plane-tree  that  shall  deserve  to  be  renowned 
in  story,  and  shall  not  perhaps  be  paralleled  in  other  countries  or 
times. 

May  not  the  same  have  happened  in  the  production,  growth,  and 
size  of  wit  and  genius  in  the  world,  or  in  some  parts  or  ages  of  it, 
and  from  many  more  circumstances  that  contributed  towards  it, 
than  what  may  concur  to  the  stupendous  growth  of  a  tree  or  ani- 
mal? May  there  not  have  been,  in  Greece  or  Italy  of  old,  such 
prodigies  of  invention  and  learning  in  philosophy,  mathematics, 
physic,  oratory,  poetry,  that  none  has  ever  since  approached  them, 
as  well  as  there  were  in  painting,  statuary,  architecture  ?  And  yet 
their  unparalleled  and  inimitable  excellencies  in  these  are  undis- 
puted. Science  and  arts  have  run  their  circles,  and  had  their 


220  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

periods  in  the  several  parts  of  the  world  ;  they  are  generally  agreed 
to  have  held  their  course  from  East  to  West,  to  have  begun  in 
Chaldea  and  Egypt,  to  have  been  transplanted  from  thence  to 
Greece,  from  Greece  to  Rome  ;  to  have  sunk  there,  and  after  many 
ages,  to  have  revived  from  those  ashes,  and  to  have  sprung  up 
again  both  in  Italy  and  other  more  western  provinces  of  Europe. 
When  Chaldea  and  Egypt  were  learned  and  civil,  Greece  and 
Rome  were  as  rude  and  barbarous  as  all  Egypt  and  Syria  now 
are,  and  have  been  long.  When  Greece  and  Rome  were  at  their 
heights  in  arts  and  sciences,  Gaul,  Germany,  Britain,  were  as  igno- 
rant and  barbarous  as  any  parts  of  Greece  or  Turkey  can  be  now. 

These,  and  greater  changes,  are  made  in  the  several  countries 
of  the  world,  and  courses  of  time,  by  the  revolutions  of  empire,  the 
devastations  of  armies,  the  cruelties  of  conquering  and  the  calam- 
ities of  enslaved  nations ;  by  the  violent  inundations  of  water  in 
some  countries,  and  the  cruel  ravages  of  plagues  in  others.  These 
sorts  of  accidents  sometimes  lay  them  so  waste,  that,  when  they 
rise  again,  it  is  from  such  low  beginnings  that  they  look  like  new- 
created  regions,  or  growing  out  of  the  original  state  of  mankind, 
and  without  any  records  or  remembrances  beyond  certain  short 
periods  of  time.  Thus  that  vast  continent  of  Norway  is  said  to 
have  been  so  wholly  desolated  by  a  plague,  about  eight  or  nine 
hundred  years  ago,  that  it  was  for  some  ages  following  a  very 
desart,  and  since  all  over-grown  with  wood  :  and  Ireland  was  so 
spoiled  and  wasted  by  the  conquest  of  the  Scutes  and  Danes,  that 
there  hardly  remains  any  story  or  tradition  what  that  island  was, 
how  planted  or  governed  about  five  hundred  years  ago.  What 
changes  have  been  made  by  violent  storms  and  inundations  of  the 
sea  in  the  maritime  provinces  of  the  Low-Countries,  is  hard  to 
know,  or  to  believe  what  is  told,  nor  how  ignorant  they  have  left 
us  of  all  that  passed  there  before  a  certain  and  short  period  of 
time. 

The  accounts  of  many  other  countries  would  perhaps  as  hardly, 
and  as  late,  have  waded  out  of  the  depths  of  time,  and  gulphs  of 
ignorance,  had  it  not  been  for  the  assistances  of  those  two  Ian- 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  221 

guages  to  which  we  owe  all  we  have  of  learning  or  ancient  records 
in  the  world.  For  whether  we  have  anything  of  the  old  Chaldean, 
Hebrew,  Arabian,  that  is  truly  genuine  or  more  ancient  than  the 
Augustan  age,  I  am  much  in  doubt ;  yet  it  is  probable  the  vast 
Alexandrian  library  must  have  chiefly  consisted  of  books  com- 
posed in  those  languages,  with  the  Egyptian,  Syrian,  and  Ethiopic, 
or  at  least  translated  out  of  them  by  the  care  of  the  Egyptian 
kings  or  priests,  as  the  Old  Testament  was,  wherein  the  Septua- 
gints  employed  left  their  names  to  that  famous  translation. 

It  is  very  true  and  just,  all  that  is  said  of  the  mighty  progress 
that  learning  and  knowledge  have  made  in  these  western  parts  of 
Europe,  within  these  hundred  and  fifty  years ;  but  that  does  not 
conclude  it  must  be  at  a  greater  height  than  it  had  been  in  other 
countries,  where  it  was  growing  much  longer  periods  of  time ;  it 
argues  more  how  low  it  was  then  amongst  us,  rather  than  how  high 
it  is  now. 

Upon  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire,  almost  all  learning  was 
buried  in  its  ruins :  the  Northern  nations  that  conquered,  or 
rather  overwhelmed  it  by  their  numbers,  were  too  barbarous  to 
preserve  the  remains  of  learning  or  civility  more  carefully  than 
they  did  those  of  statuary  or  architecture,  which  fell  before  their 
brutish  rage.  The  Saracens  indeed  from  their  conquests  of 
Egypt,  Syria,  and  Greece,  carried  home  great  spoils  of  learning,  as 
well  as  other  riches,  and  gave  the  original  of  all  that  knowledge 
which  flourished  for  some  time  among  the  Arabians,  and  has 
since  been  copied  out  of  many  authors  among  them,  as  theirs 
have  been  out  of  those  of  the  countries  they  had  subdued ;  nor 
indeed  do  learning,  civility,  morality,  seem  anywhere  to  have 
made  a  greater  growth,  in  so  short  a  time,  than  in  that  empire, 
nor  to  have  flourished  more  than  in  the  reign  of  their  great  Al- 
manzor,  under  whose  victorious  ensigns  Spain  was  conquered  by 
the  Moors ;  but  the  Goths,  and  all  the  rest  of  those  Scythian 
swarms  that  from  beyond  the  Danube  and  the  Elbe,  under  so 
many  several  names,  over-ran  all  Europe,  took  very  hardly  and 
very  late  any  tincture  of  the  learning  and  humanity  that  had  flour- 


222  SIX    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

ished  in  the  several  regions  of  it,  under  the  protection  and  by  the 
example  and  instructions  of  the  Romans  that  had  so  long  possessed 
them  :  those  Northern  nations  were  indeed  easier  induced  to  em- 
brace the  religion  of  those  they  had  subdued,  and  by  their  devo- 
tion gave  great  authority  and  revenues,  and  thereby  ease,  to  the 
clergy,  both  secular  and  regular,  through  all  their  conquests. 
Great  numbers  of  the  better  sort  among  the  oppressed  natives, 
finding  this  vein  among  them,  and  no  other  way  to  be  safe  and 
quiet  under  such  rough  masters,  betook  themselves  to  the  profes- 
sion and  assemblies  of  religious  orders  and  fraternities,  and  among 
those  only  were  preserved  all  the  poor  remainders  of  learning  in 
these  several  countries.  But  these  good  men  either  contented 
themselves  with  their  devotion,  or  with  the  ease  of  quiet  lives,  or 
else  employed  their  thoughts  and  studies  to  raise  and  maintain 
the  esteem  and  authority  of  that  sacred  order,  to  which  they  owed 
the  safety  and  repose,  the  wealth  and  honour  they  enjoyed.  And 
in  this  they  so  well  succeeded  that  the  conquerors  were  governed 
by  those  they  had  subdued,  the  greatest  Princes  by  the  meanest 
Priests,  and  the  victorious  Franks  and  Lombard  Kings  fell  at  the 
feet  of  the  Roman  Prelates.  Whilst  the  clergy  were  busied  in 
these  thoughts  or  studies,  the  better  sort  among  the  laity  were 
wholly  turned  to  arms  and  to  honour,  the  meaner  sort  to  labour 
or  to  spoil ;  Princes  taken  up  with  wars  among  themselves,  or  in 
those  of  the  Holy  Land,  or  between  the  Popes  and  Emperors 
upon  disputes  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  secular  powers ;  learning 
so  little  in  use  among  them  that  few  could  write  or  read  besides 
those  of  the  long  robes.  During  this  course  of  time,  which  lasted 
many  ages  in  the  western  parts  of  Europe,  the  Greek  tongue  was 
wholly  lost,  and  the  purity  of  the  Roman  to  that  degree  that  what 
remained  of  it  was  only  a  certain  jargon  rather  than  Latin,  that 
passed  among  the  Monks  and  Friars  who  were  at  all  learned  ;  and 
among  the  students  of  the  several  universities,  which  served  to 
carry  them  to  Rome  in  pursuit  of  preferments  or  causes  depend- 
ing there,  and  little  else. 

When  the  Turks  took  Constantinople,  about  two  hundred  years 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  223 

ago,  and  soon  after  possessed  themselves  of  all  Greece,  the  poor 
natives,  fearing  the  tyranny  of  those  cruel  masters,  made  their 
escapes  in  great  numbers  to  the  neighbouring  parts  of  Christendom, 
some  by  the  Austrian  territories  into  Germany,  others  by  the 
Venetian  into  Italy  and  France ;  several  that  were  learned  among 
these  Grecians  (and  brought  many  ancient  books  with  them  in 
that  language)  began  to  teach  it  in  these  countries ;  first  to  gain 
subsistence,  and  afterwards  favour  in  some  Princes'  or  great  men's 
courts,  who  began  to  take  a  pleasure  or  pride  in  countenancing 
learned  men.  Thus  began  the  restoration  of  learning  in  these 
parts  with  that  of  the  Greek  tongue ;  and  soon  after,  Reuchlyn 
and  Erasmus  began  that  of  the  purer  and  ancient  Latin.  After 
them,  Buchanan 3  carried  it,  I  think,  to  the  greatest  height  of  any 
of  the  moderns  before  or  since.  The  Monkish  Latin  upon  his 
return  was  laughed  out  of  doors,  and  remains  only  in  the  inns  of 
Germany  or  Poland ;  and  with  the  restitution  of  these  two  noble 
languages,  and  the  books  remaining  of  them  (which  many  Princes 
and  Prelates  were  curious  to  recover  and  collect)  learning  of  all 
sorts  began  to  thrive  in  these  Western  regions  :  and  since  that  time 
and  in  the  first  succeeding  century,  made  perhaps  a  greater  growth 
than  in  any  other  that  we  know  of  in  such  a  compass  of  time, 
considering  into  what  depths  of  ignorance  it  was  sunk  before. 

But  why  from  thence  should  be  concluded,  that  it  has  out-grown 
all  that  was  ancient,  I  see  no  reason.  If  a  strong  and  vigorous 
man  at  thirty  years  old  should  fall  into  a  consumption,  and  so 
draw  on  till  fifty  in  the  extremest  weakness  and  infirmity ;  after 
that,  should  begin  to  recover  health  till  sixty ;  so  as  to  be  again  as 
strong  as  men  usually  are  at  that  age  :  it  might  perhaps  truly  be 
said  in  that  case,  that  he  had  grown  more  in  strength  that  last  ten 
years  than  any  others  of  his  life,  but  not  that  he  was  grown  to 
more  strength  and  vigour  than  he  had  at  thirty  years  old. 

But  what  are  the  sciences  wherein  we  pretend  to  excel  ?  I  know 
of  no  new  philosophers  that  have  made  entries  upon  that  noble 

8  George  Buchanan  (1506-1582),  the  learned  Scotchman,  noted  especially 
for  his  "  History  of  Scotland."  He  wrote  altogether  in  Latin. 


224  SIX    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

stage  for  fifteen  hundred  years  past,  unless  Des  Cartes  and  Hobbes 
should  pretend  to  it ;  of  whom  I  shall  make  no  critique  here,  but 
only  say,  that,  by  what  appears  of  learned  men's  opinions  in  this 
age,  they  have  by  no  means  eclipsed  the  lustre  of  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Epicurus,  or  others  of  the  ancients.  For  grammar  or  rhetoric, 
no  man  ever  disputed  it  with  them ;  nor  for  poetry,  that  I  ever 
heard  of,  besides  the  new  French  author 4  I  have  mentioned  ;  and 
against  whose  opinion  there  could,  I  think,  never  have  been  given 
stronger  evidence  than  by  his  own  poems,  printed  together  with 
that  treatise. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  Astronomy  to  vie  with  the  ancients, 
unless  it  be  the  Copernican  system  ;  nor  in  Physic,  unless  Harvey's 
circulation  of  the  blood.  But  whether  either  of  these  be  modern 
discoveries,  or  derived  from  old  fountains,  is  disputed ;  nay,  it  is 
so  too,  whether  they  are  true  or  no ;  for,  though  reason  may  seem 
to  favour  them  more  than  the  contrary  opinions,  yet  sense  can 
very  hardly  allow  them  ;  and,  to  satisfy  mankind,  both  these  must 
concur.  But  if  they  are  true,  yet  these  two  great  discoveries  have 
made  no  change  in  the  conclusions  of  Astronomy,  nor  in  the  prac- 
tice of  Physic  ;  and  so  have  been  of  little  use  to  the  world,  though 
perhaps  of  much  honour  to  the  authors. 

What  are  become  of  the  charms  of  Music,  by  which  men  and 
beasts,  fishes,  fowls,  and  serpents,  were  so  frequently  enchanted, 
and  their  very  natures  changed  ;  by  which  the  passions  of  men 
were  raised  to  the  greatest  height  and  violence,  and  then  as  sud- 
denly appeased,  so  as  they  might  be  justly  said  to  be  turned  into 
lions  or  lambs,  into  wolves  or  into  harts,  by  the  powers  and  charms 
of  this  admirable  art?  It  is  agreed  by  the  learned  that  the  science 
of  music,  so  admired  of  the  ancients,  is  wholly  lost  in  the  world  ; 
and  that  what  we  have  now,  is  made  up  out  of  certain  notes  that 
fell  into  the  fancy  or  observation  of  a  poor  frier,  in  chanting  his 
matins.  So  as  those  two  divine  excellencies  of  music  and  poetry 

4  Fontenelle  (1657-1757)  who  published  his  "  Conversations  on  the  Plurality 
of  Worlds,"  in  1686,  and  his  "  Treatise  on  the  Ancients  and  the  Moderns,"  in 
1688,  taking  the  modern  side. 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  225 

are  grown,  in  a  manner,  to  be  little  more  but  the  one  fiddling,  and 
the  other  rhyming ;  and  are  indeed  very  worthy  the  ignorance  of 
the  frier,  and  the  barbarousness  of  the  Goths,  that  introduced  them 
among  us. 

What  have  we  remaining  of  Magic,  by  which  the  Indians,  the 
Chaldeans,  the  Egyptians,  were  so  renowned,  and  by  which  effects 
so  wonderful,  and  to  common  men  so  astonishing  were  produced, 
as  made  them  have  recourse  to  Spirits,  or  supernatural  Powers,  for 
some  account  of  their  strange  operations?  By  Magic,  I  mean 
some  excelling  knowledge  of  nature,  and  the  various  powers  and 
qualities  of  its  several  productions,  and  the  application  of  certain 
agents  to  certain  patients,  which,  by  force  of  some  peculiar  quali- 
ties, produce  effects  very  different  from  what  fall  under  vulgar 
observation  or  comprehension.  These  are  by  ignorant  people 
called  Magic  or  Conjuring,  and  such  like  terms ;  and  an  account 
of  them,  much  about  as  wise,  is  given  by  the  common  learned, 
from  Sympathies,  Antipathies,  Idiosyncrasies,  Talismans,  and  some 
scraps  or  terms  left  us  by  the  Egyptians  or  Grecians,  of  the 
ancient  magic ;  but  the  science  seems,  with  several  others,  to  be 
wholly  lost. 

What  traces  have  we  left  of  that  admirable  science  or  skill  in 
Architecture,  by  which  such  stupendous  fabrics  have  been  raised  of 
old,  and  so  many  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  been  produced,  and 
which  are  so  little  approached  by  our  modern  atchievements  of 
this  sort,  that  they  hardly  fall  within  our  imagination?  not  to 
mention  the  walls  and  palace  of  Babylon,  the  pyramids  of  Egypt, 
the  tomb  of  Mausolus,  or  colosse  of  Rhodes,  the  temples  and 
palaces  of  Greece  and  Rome  ;  what  can  be  more  admirable  in  this 
kind  than  the  Roman  theatres,  their  aqueducts,  and  their  bridges, 
among  which  that  of  Trajan  over  the  Danube  seems  to  have  been 
the  last  flight  of  the  ancient  architecture  ?  The  stupendous  effects 
of  this  science  sufficiently  evince  at  what  heights  the  Mathematics 
were  among  the  ancients  :  but  if  this  be  not  enough,  whoever 
would  be  satisfied  need  go  no  further  than  the  siege  of  Syracuse, 
and  that  mighty  defence  made  against  the  Roman  power,  more 


226  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

by  the  wonderful  science  and  arts  of  Archimedes,  and  almost  mag- 
ical force  of  his  engines,  than  by  all  the  strength  of  the  city,  or 
number  and  bravery  of  the  inhabitants. 

The  greatest  invention  that  I  know  of,  in  latter  ages,  has  been 
that  of  the  loadstone ;  and  consequently  the  greatest  improve- 
ment has  been  made  in  the  art  of  Navigation  :  yet  there  must  be 
allowed  to  have  been  something  stupendous  in  the  numbers,  and  in 
the  built  of  their  ships  and  galleys  of  old  ;  and  the  skill  of  pilots, 
from  the  observation  of  the  stars  in  the  more  serene  climates,  may 
be  judged  by  the  navigations  so  celebrated  in  story  of  the  Tyrians 
and  Carthaginians,  not  to  mention  other  nations.  However,  it  is 
to  this  we  owe  the  discovery  and  commerce  of  so  many  vast 
countries,  which  were  very  little,  if  at  all,  known  to  the  ancients, 
and  the  experimental  proof  of  this  terrestrial  globe,  which  was 
before  only  speculation,  but  has  since  been  surrounded  by  the  for- 
tune and  boldness  of  several  navigators.  From  this  great,  though 
fortuitous  invention,  and  the  consequences  thereof,  it  must  be 
allowed  that  Geography  is  mightily  advanced  in  these  latter  ages. 
The  vast  continents  of  China,  the  East  and  West  Indies,  the  long 
extent  and  coasts  of  Africa,  with  the  numberless  islands  belonging 
to  them,  have  been  hereby  introduced  into  our  acquaintance,  and 
our  maps ;  and  great  increases  of  wealth  and  luxury,  but  none  of 
knowledge,  brought  among  us,  further  than  the  extent  and  situa- 
tion of  country,  the  customs  and  manners  of  so  many  original 
nations,  which  we  call  barbarous ;  and  I  am  sure  have  treated 
them  as  if  we  hardly  esteemed  them  to  be  a  part  of  mankind.  I 
do  not  doubt,  but  many  great  and  more  noble  uses  would  have 
been  made  of  such  conquests  or  discoveries,  if  they  had  fallen  to 
the  share  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  those  ages  when  knowl- 
edge and  fame  were  in  as  great  request  as  endless  gains  and  wealth 
are  among  us  now ;  and  how  much  greater  discoveries  might  have 
been  made  by  such  spirits  as  theirs,  is  hard  to  guess.  I  am  sure, 
ours,  though  great,  yet  look  very  imperfect,  as  to  what  the  face  of 
this  terrestial  globe  would  probably  appear,  if  they  had  been  pur- 
sued as  far  as  we  might  justly  have  expected  from  the  progresses 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  227 

of  navigation  since  the  use  of  the  compass,  which  seems  to  have 
been  long  at  a  stand  ;  how  little  has  been  performed  of  what  has 
been  so  often  and  so  confidently  promised,  of  a  north-west  pas- 
sage to  the  East  of  Tartary,  and  North  of  China  ?  How  little  do 
we  know  of  the  lands  on  that  side  of  the  Magellan  Straits  that  lie 
towards  the  South  pole,  which  may  be  vast  islands  or  continents, 
for  aught  any  can  yet  aver,  though  that  passage  was  so  long  since 
found  out?  Whether  Japan  be  island  or  continent,  with  some 
parts  of  Tartary  on  the  north  side,  is  not  certainly  agreed.  The 
lands  of  Yedso  upon  the  north-east  continent  have  been  no  more 
than  coasted  ;  and  whether  they  may  not  join  to  the  northern  con- 
tinent of  America,  is  by  some  doubted. 

But  the  defect  or  negligence  seems  yet  to  have  been  greater 
towards  the  south,  where  we  know  little  beyond  thirty-five  degrees, 
and  that  only  by  the  necessity  of  doubling  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  in  our  East- India  voyages  :  yet  a  continent  has  been  long 
since  found  out  within  fifteen  degrees  to  South,  and  about  the 
length  of  Java,  which  is  marked  by  the  name  of  New  Holland 
in  the  maps,  and  to  what  extent  none  knows,  either  to  the  South, 
the  East,  or  the  West ;  yet  the  learned  have  been  of  opinion,  that 
there  must  be  a  balance  of  earth  on  that  side  of  the  line  in  some 
proportion  to  what  there  is  on  the  other ;  and  that  it  cannot  be  all 
sea  from  thirty  degrees  to  the  South  pole,  since  we  have  found 
land  to  above  sixty-five  degrees  towards  the  North.  But  our 
navigators  that  way  have  been  confined  to  the  roads  of  trade,  and 
our  discoveries  bounded  by  what  we  can  manage  to  a  certain 
degree  of  gain.  And  I  have  heard  it  said  among  the  Dutch,  that 
their  East-India  Company  have  long  since  forbidden,  and  under 
the  greatest  penalties,  any  further  attempts  of  discovering  that  con- 
tinent, having  already  more  trade  in  those  parts  than  they  can  turn 
to  account,  and  fearing  some  more  populous  nation  of  Europe 
might  make  great  establishments  of  trade  in  some  of  those  un- 
known regions,  which  might  ruin  or  impair  what  they  have  already 
in  the  Indies. 

Thus  we  are  lame  still  in  geography  itself,  which  we  might  have 


228  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

expected  to  run  up  to  so  much  greater  perfection  by  the  use  of 
the  compass ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  little  advanced  these 
last  hundred  years.  So  far  have  we  been  from  improving  upon 
those  advantages  we  have  received  from  the  knowledge  of  the 
ancients,  that,  since  the  late  restoration  of  learning  and  arts  among 
us,  our  first  flights  seem  to  have  been  the  highest,  and  a  sudden 
damp  to  have  fallen  upon  our  wings,  which  has  hindered  us 
from  rising  above  certain  heights.  The  arts  of  Painting  and 
Statuary  began  to  revive  with  learning  in  Europe,  and  made  a 
great  but  short  flight ;  so  as,  for  these  last  hundred  years,  we  have 
not  had  one  master  in  either  of  them  who  deserved  a  rank  with 
those  that  flourished  in  that  short  period  after  they  began  among 
us. 

It  were  too  great  a  mortification  to  think  that  the  same  fate  has 
happened  to  us,  even  in  our  modern  learning ;  as  if  the  growth  of 
that,  as  well  as  of  natural  bodies,  had  some  short  periods  beyond 
which  it  could  not  reach,  and  after  which  it  must  begin  to  decay. 
It  falls  in  one  country  or  one  age,  and  rises  again  in  others,  but 
never  beyond  a  certain  pitch.  One  man,  or  one  country,  at  a  cer- 
tain time  runs  a  great  length  in  some  certain  kinds  of  knowledge, 
but  loses  as  much  ground  in  others,  that  were  perhaps  as  useful 
and  as  valuable.  There  is  a  certain  degree  of  capacity  in  the 
greatest  vessel,  and,  when  it  is  full,  if  you  pour  in  still,  it  must  run 
out  some  way  or  other ;  and  the  more  it  runs  out  on  one  side,  the 
less  runs  out  at  the  other.  So  the  greatest  memory,  after  a 
certain  degree,  as  it  learns  or  retains  more  of  some  things  or  words, 
loses  and  forgets  as  much  of  others.  The  largest  and  deepest 
reach  of  thought,  the  more  it  pursues  some  certain  subjects,  the 
more  it  neglects  others. 

Besides,  few  men  or  none  excel  in  all  faculties  of  mind.  A 
great  memory  may  fail  of  invention  ;  both  may  want  judgment  to 
digest  or  apply  what  they  remember  or  invent.  Great  courage 
may  want  caution ;  great  prudence  may  want  vigour ;  yet  all  are 
necessary  to  make  a  great  commander.  But  how  can  a  man  hope 
to  excel  in  all  qualities,  when  some  are  produced  by  the  heat, 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  229 

others  by  the  coldness  of  brain  and  temper  ?  The  abilities  of  man 
must  fall  short  on  one  side  or  other,  like  too  scanty  a  blanket 
when  you  are  a-bed ;  if  you  pull  it  upon  your  shoulders,  you  leave 
your  feet  bare  ;  if  you  thrust  it  down  upon  your  feet,  your  shoul- 
ders are  uncovered. 

But  what  would  we  have,  unless  it  be  other  natures  and  beings 
than  God  Almighty  has  given  us?  The  height  of  our  statures  may 
be  six  or  seven  feet,  and  we  would  have  it  sixteen ;  the  length  of 
our  age  may  reach  to  a  hundred  years,  and  we  would  have  it  a 
thousand  :  we  are  born  to  grovel  upon  the  earth,  and  we  would 
fain  soar  up  to  the  skies.  We  cannot  comprehend  the  growth  of  a 
kernel  or  seed,  the  frame  of  an  ant  or  bee  ;  we  are  amazed  at  the 
wisdom  of  the  one,  and  industry  of  the  other ;  and  yet  we  will 
know  the  substance,  the  figure,  the  courses,  the  influences,  of  all 
those  glorious  celestial  bodies,  and  the  end  for  which  they  were 
made :  we  pretend  to  give  a  clear  account  how  thunder  and 
lightning  (that  great  artillery  of  God  Almighty)  is  produced,  and 
we  cannot  comprehend  how  the  voice  of  a  man  is  framed,  that 
poor  little  noise  we  make  every  time  we  speak.  The  motion  of 
the  sun  is  plain  and  evident  to  some  astronomers,  and  of  the  earth 
to  others ;  yet  we  none  of  us  know  which  of  them  moves,  and 
meet  with  many  seeming  impossibilities  in  both,  and  beyond  the 
fathom  of  human  reason  or  comprehension.  Nay,  we  do  not  so 
much  as  know  what  motion  is,  nor  how  a  stone  moves  from  our 
hand,  when  we  throw  it  cross  the  street.  Of  all  these  that  most 
ancient  and  divine  writer  gives  the  best  account  in  that  short 
satire,  "Vain  man  would  fain  be  wise,  when  he  is  born  like  a 
wild  ass's  colt." 5 

But,  God  be  thanked,  his  pride  is  greater  than  his  ignorance ; 
and  what  he  wants  in  knowledge,  he  supplies  by  sufficiency. 
When  he  has  looked  about  him  as  far  as  he  can,  he  concludes 
there  is  no  more  to  be  seen ;  when  he  is  at  the  end  of  his  line,  he 
is  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean ;  when  he  has  shot  his  best,  he  is 
sure  none  ever  did  nor  ever  can  shoot  better  or  beyond  it.  His 

6  Job.  xi.  12. 


230  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

own  reason  is  the  certain  measure  of  truth,  his  own  knowledge, 
of  what  is  possible  in  nature ;  though  his  mind  and  his  thoughts 
change  every  seven  years,  as  well  as  his  strength  and  his  features ; 
nay,  though  his  opinions  change  every  week  or  every  day,  yet  he  is 
sure,  or  at  least  confident,  that  his  present  thoughts  and  conclu- 
sions are  just  and  true,  and  cannot  be  deceived  ;  and,  among  all 
the  miseries  to  which  mankind  is  born  and  subjected  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  he  has  this  one  felicity  to  comfort  and  support 
him,  that,  in  all  ages,  in  all  things,  every  man  is  always  in  the 
right.  A  boy  at  fifteen  is  wiser  than  his  father  at  forty,  the 
meanest  subject  than  his  Prince  or  Governors ;  and  the  modern 
scholars,  because  they  have,  for  a  hundred  years  past,  learned 
their  lesson  pretty  well,  are  much  more  knowing  than  the  ancients 
their  masters. 

But  let  it  be  so,  and  proved  by  good  reasons,  is  it  so  by 
experience  too?  Have  the  studies,  the  writings,  the  productions 
of  Gresham  college,  or  the  late  academies  of  Paris,  outshined  or 
eclipsed  the  Lycaeum  of  Plato,  the  academy  of  Aristotle,  the  Stoa 
of  Zeno,  the  garden  of  Epicurus  ?  Has  Harvey  outdone  Hippoc- 
rates ;  or  Wilkins,  Archimedes  ?  Are  D'Avila's  and  Strada's  his- 
tories beyond  those  of  Herodotus  and  Livy  ?  Are  Sleyden's  com- 
mentaries beyond  those  of  Caesar?  the  flights  of  Boileau  above 
those  of  Virgil  ?  If  all  this  must  be  allowed,  I  will  then  yield 
Gondibert  to  have  excelled  Homer,  as  is  pretended ;  and  the 
modern  French  poetry,  all  that  of  the  ancients.  And  yet,  I 
think  it  may  be  as  reasonably  said  that  the  plays  in  Moorfields  are 
beyond  the  Olympic  games  ;  a  Welsh  or  Irish  harp  excels  those  of 
Orpheus  and  Arion ;  the  pryamid  in  London,  those  of  Memphis ; 
and  the  French  conquests  in  Flanders  are  greater  than  those  of 
Alexander  and  Caesar,  as  their  operas  and  panegyrics  would  make 
us  believe. 

But  the  consideration  of  poetry  ought  to  be  a  subject  by  itself. 
For  the  books  we  have  in  prose,  do  any  of  the  modern  we  con- 
verse with  appear  of  such  a  spirit  and  force,  as  if  they  would  live 
longer  than  the  ancient  have  done?  If  our  wit  and  eloquence, 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  LEARNING.  231 

our  knowledge  or  inventions,  would  deserve  it,  yet  our  languages 
would  not :  there  is  no  hope  of  their  lasting  long,  nor  of  anything 
in  them ;  they  change  every  hundred  years  so  as  to  be  hardly 
known  for  the  same,  or  anything  of  the  former  styles  to  be  endured 
by  the  latter ;  so  as  they  can  no  more  last  like  the  ancients,  than 
excellent  carvings  in  wood  like  those  in  marble  or  brass. 

The  three  modern  tongues  most  esteemed  are  Italian,  Spanish, 
and  French,  all  imperfect  dialects  of  the  noble  Roman;  first 
mingled  and  corrupted  with  the  harsh  words  and  terminations  of 
those  many  different  and  barbarous  nations,  by  whose  invasions 
and  excursions  the  Roman  empire  was  long  infested  :  they  were 
afterwards  made  up  into  these  several  languages,  by  long  and 
popular  use,  out  of  those  ruins  and  corruptions  of  Latin,  and  the 
prevailing  languages  of  those  nations  to  which  these  several 
provinces  came  in  time  to  be  most  and  longest  subjected  (as  the 
Goths  and  Moors  in  Spain,  the  Goths  and  Lombards  in  Italy,  the 
Franks  in  Gaul),  besides  a  mingle  of  those  tongues  which  were 
original  to  Gaul  and  to  Spain  before  the  Roman  conquests  and 
establishments  there.  Of  these,  there  may  be  some  remainders  in 
Biscay  or  the  Asturias  :  but  I  doubt  whether  there  be  any  of  the 
old  Gallic  in  France,  the  subjection  there  having  been  more 
universal,  both  to  the  Romans  and  Franks.  But  I  do  not  find  the 
mountainous  parts  on  the  North  of  Spain  were  ever  wholly  sub- 
dued, or  formerly  governed,  either  by  the  Romans,  Goths,  or  Sar- 
acens, no  more  than  Wales  by  Romans,  Saxons,  or  Normans, 
after  their  conquests  in  our  island,  which  has  preserved  the  ancient 
Biscayan  and  British  more  entire  than  any  native  tongue  of  other 
provinces,  where  the  Roman  and  Gothic  or  Northern  conquests 
reached,  and  were  for  any  time  established. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  how  imperfect  copies  these  modern  lan- 
guages, thus  composed,  must  needs  be  of  so  excellent  an  original, 
being  patched  up  out  of  the  conceptions,  as  well  as  sounds,  of 
such  barbarous  or  enslaved  people ;  whereas  the  Latin  was  framed 
or  cultivated  by  the  thoughts  and  uses  of  the  noblest  nation  that 
appears  upon  any  record  of  story,  and  enriched  only  by  the  spoils 


232  SIR    WILLIAM   TEMPLE. 

of  Greece,  which  alone  could  pretend  to  contest  it  with  them.  It 
is  obvious  enough  what  rapport  there  is,  and  must  ever  be, 
between  the  thoughts  and  words,  the  conceptions  and  languages 
of  every  country,  and  how  great  a  difference  this  must  make  in 
the  comparison  and  excellence  of  books ;  and  how  easy  and  just 
a  preference  it  must  decree  to  those  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
before  any  of  the  modern  languages. 

It  may  pejhaps  be  further  affirmed,  in  favour  of  the  ancients, 
that  the  oldest  books  we  have  are  still  in  their  kind  the  best. 
The  two  most  ancient  that  I  know  of  in  prose,  among  those  we 
call  profane  authors,  are  ^Esop's  Fables  and  Phalaris's  Epistles, 
both  living  near  the  same  time,  which  was  that  of  Cyrus  and 
Pythagoras.  As  the  first  has  been  agreed  by  all  ages  since  for 
the  greatest  master  in  his  kind,  and  all  others  of  that  sort  have 
been  but  imitations  of  his  original ;  so  I  think  the  Epistles  of 
Phalaris  to  have  more  grace,  more  spirit,  more  force  of  wit  and 
genius,  than  any  others  I  have  ever  seen,  either  ancient  or  modern. 
I  know  several  learned  men  (or  that  usually  pass  for  such  under 
the  name  of  critics)  have  not  esteemed  them  genuine ;  and 
Politian,  with  some  others,  have  attributed  them  to  Lucian  :  but 
I  think  he  must  have  little  skill  in  painting,  that  cannot  find  out 
this  to  be  an  original ;  such  diversity  of  passions,  upon  such  variety 
of  actions  and  passages  of  life  and  government,  such  freedom  of 
thought,  such  boldness  of  expression,  such  bounty  to  his  friends, 
such  scorn  of  his  enemies,  such  honour  of  learned  men,  such 
esteem  of  good,  such  knowledge  of  life,  such  contempt  of  death, 
with  such  fierceness  of  nature  and  cruelty  of  revenge,  could  never 
be  represented  but  by  him  that  possessed  them ;  and  I  esteem 
Lucian  to  have  been  no  more  capable  of  writing,  than  of  acting 
what  Phalaris  did.  In  all  one  writ,  you  find  the  scholar  or  the 
sophist ;  and  in  all  the  other,  the  tyrant  and  the  commander.6 

6  This  paragraph  is  all  that  Temple  says  about  the  "  Epistles  of  Phalaris," 
as  to  the  genuineness  of  which  the  celebrated  Bentley  and  Boyle  controversy 
arose  soon  afterwards. 


XIII. 

JOHN    DRYDEN. 

(1631-1700.) 

1.   AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY. 

[Written  about  1665,  revised  1684.] 

LisiDEius1  concluded  in  this  manner;  and  Neander,2  after  a 
little  pause,  thus  answered  him  : 

I  shall  grant  Lisideius,  without  much  dispute,  a  great  part  of 
what  he  has  urged  against  us  ;  for  I  acknowledge  that  the  French 
contrive  their  plots  more  regularly,  and  observe  the  laws  of  com- 
edy, and  decorum  of  the  stage  (to  speak  generally),  with  more 
exactness  than  the  English.  Farther,  I  deny  not  but  he  has 
taxed  us  justly  in  some  irregularities  of  ours  which  he  has  men- 
tioned ;  yet,  after  all,  I  am  of  opinion,  that  neither  our  faults,  nor 
their  virtues,  are  considerable  enough  to  place  them  above  us. 

For  the  lively  imitation  of  nature  being  in  the  definition  of  a 
play,  those  which  best  fulfil  that  law  ought  to  be  esteemed  superior 
to  the  others.  'Tis  true,  those  beauties  of  the  French  poesy  are 
such  as  will  raise  perfection  higher  where  it  is,  but  are  not  suffi- 
cient to  give  it  where  it  is  not ;  they  are  indeed  the  beauties  of  a 
statue,  but  not  of  a  man,  because  not  animated  with  the  soul  of 
poesy,  which  is  imitation  of  humour  and  passions :  and  this  Lisi- 
deius himself,  or  any  other,  however  biassed  to  their  party,  cannot 
but  acknowledge,  if  he  will  either  compare  the  humour  of  our 
comedies,  or  the  characters  of  our  serious  plays,  with  theirs.  He 

1  Sir  Charles  Sedley,  who  had  exalted  the  French  drama  above  the  English. 

2  Dryden. 

233 


234  JOHN  DR  YDEN. 

who  will  look  upon  theirs  which  have  been  written  till  these  last 
ten  years,  or  thereabouts,  will  find  it  an  hard  matter  to  pick  out 
two  or  three  passable  humours  amongst  them.  Corneille  himself, 
their  arch-poet,  what  has  he  produced  except  "  The  Liar "  ?  and 
you  know  how  it  was  cried  up  in  France ;  but  when  it  came  upon 
the  English  stage,  though  well  translated,  and  that  part  of  Dorant 
acted  to  so  much  advantage  as  I  am  confident  it  never  received  in 
its  own  country,  the  most  favourable  to  it  would  not  put  it  in  com- 
petition with  many  of  Fletcher's  or  Ben  Jonson's.  In  the  rest  of 
Corneille's  comedies  you  have  little  humour ;  he  tells  you  himself, 
his  way  is,  first  to  show  two  lovers  in  good  intelligence  with  each 
other ;  in  the  working  up  of  the  play,  to  embroil  them  by  some 
mistake,  and  in  the  latter  end  to  clear  it,  and  reconcile  them. 

But  of  late  years  Moliere,  the  younger  Corneille,  Quinault,  and 
some  others,  have  been  imitating  afar  off  the  quick  turns  and 
graces  of  the  English  stage.  They  have  mixed  their  serious  plays 
with  mirth,  like  our  tragi-co medics,  since  the  death  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu,  which  Lisideius,  and  many  others,  not  observing,  have 
commended  that  in  them  for  a  virtue,  which  they  themselves  no 
longer  practise.  Most  of  their  new  plays  are,  like  some  of  ours, 
derived  from  the  Spanish  novels.  There  is  scarce  one  of  them 
without  a  veil,  and  a  trusty  Diego,  who  drolls  much  after  the  rate 
of  the  "Adventures."3  But  their  humours,  if  I  may  grace  them 
with  that  name,  are  so  thin  sown,  that  never  above  one  of  them 
comes  up  in  any  play.  I  dare  take  upon  me  to  find  more  variety 
of  them  in  some  one  play  of  Ben  Jonson's,  than  in  all  theirs  to- 
gether :  as  he  who  has  seen  the  "  Alchemist,"  "  The  Silent  Woman," 
or  "  Bartholomew  Fair,"  cannot  but  acknowledge  with  me. 

I  grant  the  French  have  performed  what  was  possible  on  the 
ground-work  of  the  Spanish  plays ;  what  was  pleasant  before, 
they  have  made  regular :  but  there  is  not  above  one  good  play  to 
be  writ  on  all  those  plots ;  they  are  too  much  alike  to  please  often, 

8  '"The  Adventures  of  Five  Hours,'  a  comedy  imitated  from  the  Spanish  of 
Calderon,  by  Sir  Samuel  Tuke,  with  some  assistance  from  the  Earl  of  Bristol." 
—  SCOTT. 


*N  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  235 

which  we  need  not  the  experience  of  our  own  stage  to  justify. 
As  for  their  new  way  of  mingling  mirth  with  serious  plot,  I  do  not, 
with  Lisideius,  condemn  the  thing,  though  I  cannot  approve  their 
manner  of  doing  it.  He  tells  us,  we  cannot  so  speedily  recollect 
ourselves  after  a  scene  of  great  passion  and  concernment,  as  to 
pass  to  another  of  mirth  and  humour,  and  to  enjoy  it  with  any 
relish  :  but  why  should  he  imagine  the  soul  of  man  more  heavy  than 
his  senses?  Does  not  the  eye  pass  from  an  unpleasant  object  to 
a  pleasant,  in  a  much  shorter  time  than  is  required  to  this  ?  and 
does  not  the  unpleasantness  of  the  first  commend  the  beauty  of 
the  latter  ?  The  old  rule  of  logic  might  have  convinced  him  that 
contraries,  when  placed  near,  set  off  each  other.  A  continued 
gravity  keeps  the  spirit  too  much  bent ;  we  must  refresh  it  some- 
times, as  we  bait  in  a  journey,  that  we  may  go  on  with  greater 
ease.  A  scene  of  mirth,  mixed  with  tragedy,  has  the  same  effect 
upon  us  which  our  music  has  betwixt  the  acts ;  which  we  find  a 
relief  to  us  from  the  best  plots  and  language  of  the  stage,  if  the 
discourses  have  been  long.  I  must  therefore  have  stronger  argu- 
ments ere  I  am  convinced  that  compassion  and  mirth  in  the  same 
subject  destroy  each  other;  and  in  the  mean  time,  cannot  but 
conclude,  to  the  honour  of  our  nation,  that  we  have  invented, 
increased,  and  perfected,  a  more  pleasant  way  of  writing  for  the 
stage,  than  was  ever  known  to  the  ancients  or  moderns  of  any 
nation,  which  is  tragi-comedy. 

And  this  leads  me  to  wonder  why  Lisideius  and  many  others 
should  cry  up  the  barrenness  of  the  French  plots  above  the  variety 
and  copiousness  of  the  English.  Their  plots  are  single ;  they  carry 
on  one  design,  which  is  pushed  forward  by  all  the  actors,  every 
scene  in  the  play  contributing  and  moving  towards  it.  Our  plays, 
besides  the  main  design,  have  under-plots,  or  by-concernments,  of 
less  considerable  persons  and  intrigues,  which  are  carried  on  with 
the  motion  of  the  main  plot :  as  they  say  the  orb  of  the  fixed 
stars,  and  those  of  the  planets,  though  they  have  motions  of  th.air 
own,  are  whirled  about  by  the  motion  of  the prinuim  mobile*  in 

4  The  sphere  in  which  the  planets  were  conceived  to  be  set. 


236  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

which  they  are  contained.  That  similitude  expresses  much  of  the 
English  stage  ;  for  if  contrary  motions  may  be  found  in  nature  to 
agree  ;  if  a  planet  can  go  east  and  west  at  the  same  time  ;  —  one 
way  by  virtue  of  his  own  motion,  the  other  by  the  force  of  the 
first  mover ;  —  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  imagine  how  the  under-plot, 
which  is  only  different,  not  contrary  to  the  great  design,  may  nat- 
urally be  conducted  along  with  it.  Eugenius 5  has  already  shewn 
us,  from  the  confession  of  the  French  poets,  that  the  unity  of 
action  is  sufficiently  preserved,  if  all  the  imperfect  actions  of  the 
play  are  conducting  to  the  main  design ;  but  when  those  petty 
intrigues  of  a  play  are  so  ill-ordered  that  they  have  no  coherence 
with  the  other,  I  must  grant  that  Lisideius  has  reason  to  tax  that 
want  of  due  connexion ;  for  co-ordination  in  a  play  is  as  danger- 
ous and  unnatural  as  in  a  state.  In  the  mean  time  he  must 
acknowledge,  our  variety,  if  well  ordered,  will  afford  a  greater 
pleasure  to  the  audience. 

As  for  his  other  argument,  that  by  pursuing  one  single  theme, 
they  gain  an  advantage  to  express  and  work  up  the  passions,  I 
wish  any  example  he  can  bring  from  them  would  make  it  good ; 
for  I  confess  their  verses  are  to  me  the  coldest  I  have  ever  read. 
Neither,  indeed,  is  it  possible  for  them,  in  the  way  they  take,  so 
to  express  passion,  as  that  the  effects  of  it  should  appear  in  the 
concernment  of  an  audience,  their  speeches  being  so  many  decla- 
mations, which  tire  us  with  the  length ;  so  that,  instead  of  per- 
suading us  to  grieve  for  their  imaginary  heroes,  we  are  concerned 
for  our  own  trouble,  as  we  are  in  tedious  visits  of  bad  company ; 
we  are  in  pain  till  they  are  gone.  When  the  French  stage  came 
to  be  reformed  by  Cardinal  Richelieu,  those  long  harangues  were 
introduced,  to  comply  with  the  gravity  of  a  churchman.  Look 
upon  the  "  Cinna  "  and  the  "  Pompey  "  ;  they  are  not  so  properly 
to  be  called  plays,  as  long  discourses  of  reasons  of  state ;  and 
"  Polieucte  "  in  matters  of  religion  is  as  solemn  as  the  long  stops 
upon  our  organs.  Since  that  time  it  is  grown  into  a  custom,  and 

6  Lord  Buckhurst,  afterwards  Earl  of  Dorset. 


AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  237 

their  actors  speak  by  the  hour-glass,  like  our  parsons;6  nay,  they 
account  it  the  grace  of  their  parts,  and  think  themselves  dispar- 
aged by  the  poet,  if  they  may  not  twice  or  thrice  in  a  play  enter- 
tain the  audience  with  a  speech  of  an  hundred  lines.  I  deny  not 
but  this  may  suit  well  enough  with  the  French ;  for  as  we,  who 
are  a  more  sullen  people,  come  to  be  diverted  at  our  plays,  so 
they,  who  are  of  an  airy  and  gay  temper,  come  thither  to  make 
themselves  more  serious :  and  this  I  conceive  to  be  one  reason 
why  comedies  are  more  pleasing  to  us,  and  tragedies  to  them. 
But  to  speak  generally :  It  cannot  be  denied  that  short  speeches 
and  replies  are  more  apt  to  move  the  passions,  and  beget  concern- 
ment in  us,  than  the  other ;  for  it  is  unnatural  for  any  one,  in  a 
gust  of  passion,  to  speak  long  together ;  or  for  another,  in  the 
same  condition,  to  suffer  him  without  interruption.  Grief  and 
passion  are  like  floods  raised  in  little  brooks  by  a  sudden  rain ; 
they  are  quickly  up,  and  if  the  concernment  be  poured  unex- 
pectedly in  upon  us,  it  overflows  us :  But  a  long  sober  shower 
gives  them  leisure  to  run  out  as  they  came  in,  without  troubling 
the  ordinary  current.  As  for  comedy,  repartee  is  one  of  its  chief- 
est  graces ;  the  greatest  pleasure  of  the  audience  is  a  chase  of  wit, 
kept  up  on  both  sides,  and  swiftly  managed.  And  this  our  fore- 
fathers, if  not  we,  have  had  in  Fletcher's  plays  to  a  much  higher 
degree  of  perfection  than  the  French  poets  can  reasonably  hope 
to  reach. 

There  is  another  part  of  Lisideius's  discourse,  in  which  he  has 
rather  excused  our  neighbours,  than  commended  them ;  that  is, 
for  aiming  only  to  make  one  person  considerable  in  their  plays. 
It  is  very  true  what  he  has  urged,  that  one  character  in  all  plays, 
even  without  the  poet's  care,  will  have  advantage  of  all  the  others ; 
and  that  the  design  of  the  whole  drama  will  chiefly  depend  on  it. 
But  this  hinders  not  that  there  may  be  more  shining  characters 
in  the  play :  many  persons  of  a  second  magnitude,  nay,  some  so 

6  "The  custom  of  placing  an  hour-glass  before  the  clergyman  was  then 
common  in  England.  It  is  still  the  furniture  of  a  country  pulpit  in  Scotland." 
—  SCOTT. 


238  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

very  near,  so  almost  equal  to  the  first,  that  greatness  may  be 
opposed  to  greatness,  r.nd  all  the  persons  be  made  considerable, 
not  only  by  their  quality,  but  their  action.  It  is  evident,  that  the 
more  the  persons  are,  the  greater  will  be  the  variety  of  the  plot. 
If  then  the  parts  are  managed  so  regularly  that  the  beauty  of  the 
whole  be  kept  entire,  and  that  the  variety  become  not  a  perplexed 
and  confused  mass  of  accidents,  you  will  find  it  infinitely  more 
pleasing  to  be  led  in  a  labyrinth  of  design,  where  you  see  some  of 
your  way  before  you,  yet  discern  not  the  end  till  you  arrive  at  it. 
And  that  all  this  is  practicable,  I  can  produce  for  examples  many 
of  our  English  plays  ;  as  "  The  Maid's  Tragedy,"  "  The  Alchem- 
ist," "The  Silent  Woman":  I  was  going  to  have  named  "The 
Fox,"  but  that  the  unity  of  design  seems  not  exactly  observed 
in  it ;  for  there  appear  two  actions  in  the  play ;  the  first  naturally 
ending  with  the  fourth  act,  the  second  forced  from  it  in  the  fifth  : 
which  yet  is  the  less  to  be  condemned  in  him,  because  the  dis- 
guise of  Volpone,  though  it  suited  not  with  his  character  as  a 
crafty  or  covetous  person,  agreed  well  enough  with  that  of  a 
voluptuary ;  and  by  it  the  poet  gained  the  end  at  which  he  aimed, 
the  punishment  of  vice,  and  the  reward  of  virtue,  both  which  that 
disguise  produced.  So  that  to  judge  equally  of  it,  it  was  an 
excellent  fifth  act,  but  not  so  naturally  proceeding  from  the 
former. 

But  to  leave  this,  and  pass  to  the  latter  part  of  Lisideius's  dis- 
course, which  concerns  relations,  I  must  acknowledge  with  him, 
that  the  French  have  reason  to  hide  that  part  of  the  action  which 
would  occasion  too  much  tumult  on  the  stage,  and  to  chuse  rather 
to  have  it  made  known  by  narration  to  the  audience.  Farther,  I 
think  it  very  convenient,  for  the  reasons  he  has  given,  that  all 
incredible  actions  were  removed  ;  but,  whether  custom  has  so  in- 
sinuated itself  into  our  countrymen,  or  nature  has  so  formed  them 
to  fierceness,  I  know  not ;  but  they  will  scarcely  suffer  combats 
and  other  objects  of  horror  to  be  taken  from  them.  And  indeed, 
the  indecency  of  tumults  is  all  which  can  be  objected  against  fight- 
ing :  for  why  may  not  our  imagination  as  well  suffer  itself  to  be 


AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  239 

deluded  with  the  probability  of  it,  as  with  any  other  thing  in  the 
play?  For  my  part,  I  can  with  as  great  ease  persuade  myself 
that  the  blows  are  given  in  good  earnest,  as  I  can  that  they  who 
strike  them  are  kings  or  princes,  or  those  persons  which  they 
represent.  For  objects  of  incredibility,  —  I  would  be  satisfied 
from  Lisideius,  whether  we  have  any  so  removed  from  all  appear- 
ance of  truth,  as  are  those  of  Corneille's  "  Andromede  "  ;  a  play 
which  has  been  frequented  the  most  of  any  he  has  writ.  If  the 
Perseus,  or  the  son  of  an  heathen  god,  the  Pegasus,  and  the 
Monster,  were  not  capable  to  choke  a  strong  belief,  let  him  blame 
any  representation  of  ours  hereafter.  Those  indeed  were  objects 
of  delight,  yet  the  reason  is  the  same  as  to  the  probability ;  for  he 
makes  it  not  a  ballet,  or  masque,  but  a  play,  which  is  to  resemble 
truth.  But  for  death,  that  it  ought  not  to  be  represented,  I  have, 
besides  the  arguments  alleged  by  Lisideius,  the  authority  of  Ben 
Jonson,  who  has  forborne  it  in  his  tragedies  :  for  both  the  death 
of  Sejanus  and  Catiline  are  related ;  though,  in  the  latter,  I  can- 
not but  observe  one  irregularity  of  that  great  poet;  he  has  re- 
moved the  scene  in  the  same  act  from  Rome  to  Catiline's  army, 
and  from  thence  again  to  Rome  ;  and  besides,  has  allowed  a  very 
considerable  time  after  Catiline's  speech  for  the  striking  of  the 
battle,  and  the  return  of  Petreius,  who  is  to  relate  the  event  of  it 
to  the  senate ;  which  I  should  not  animadvert  on  him,  who  was 
otherwise  a  painful  observer  of  TO  TrpeVoi/,  or  the  decorum  of  the 
stage,  if  he  had  not  used  extreme  severity  in  his  judgment  on  the 
incomparable  Shakespeare  for  the  same  fault.7  To  conclude  on 
this  subject  of  relations,  if  we  are  to  be  blamed  for  shewing  too 
much  of  the  action,  the  French  are  as  faulty  for  discovering  too 
little  of  it ;  a  mean  betwixt  both  should  be  observed  by  every 
judicious  writer,  so  as  the  audience  may  neither  be  left  unsatisfied 
by  not  seeing  what  is  beautiful,  or  shocked  by  beholding  what  is 
either  incredible  or  indecent. 

I  hope  I  have  already  proved  in  this  discourse,  that  though  we 
are  not  altogether  so  punctual  as  the  French  in  observing  the  laws 

7  SCOTT  refers  to  Jonson's  Prologue  to  "  Every  Man  in  his  Humour." 


240  JOHN  DRYDEK. 

of  comedy,  yet  our  errors  are  so  few,  and  little,  and  those  things 
wherein  we  excel  them  so  considerable,  that  we  ought  of  right  to 
be  preferred  before  them.  But  what  will  Lisideius  say,  if  they 
themselves  acknowledge  they  are  too  strictly  bounded  by  those 
laws,  for  breaking  which  he  has  blamed  the  English  ?  I  will  allege 
Corneille's  words,  as  I  find  them  in  the  end  of  his  Discourse  of 
the  Three  Unities  :  //  est  facile  aux  speculatifs  d'  estre  sevens,  &c. 
"  It  is  easy  for  speculative  persons  to  judge  severely ;  but  if  they 
would  produce  to  public  view  ten  or  twelve  pieces  of  this  nature, 
they  would  perhaps  give  more  latitude  to  the  rules  than  I  have 
done,  when,  by  experience,  they  had  known  how  much  we  are 
limited  and  constrained  by  them,  and  how  many  beauties  of  the 
stage  they  banished  from  it."  To  illustrate  a  little  what  he  has 
said  :  —  by  their  servile  observations  of  the  unities  of  time  and 
place,  and  integrity  of  scenes,  they  have  brought  on  themselves 
that  dearth  of  plot,  and  narrowness  of  imagination  which  may  be 
observed  in  all  their  plays.  How  many  beautiful  accidents  might 
naturally  happen  in  two  or  three  days,  which  cannot  arrive 8  with 
any  probability  in  the  compass  of  twenty-four  hours?  There  is 
time  to  be  allowed  also  for  maturity  of  design,  which  amongst 
great  and  prudent  persons,  such  as  are  often  represented  in  trag- 
edy, cannot,  with  any  likelihood  of  truth,  be  brought  to  pass  at  so 
short  a  warning.  Farther,  by  tying  themselves  strictly  to  the  unity 
of  place,  and  unbroken  scenes,  they  are  forced  many  times  to  omit 
some  beauties  which  cannot  be  shewn  where  the  act  began ;  but 
might,  if  the  scene  were  interrupted,  and  the  stage  cleared  for  the 
persons  to  enter  in  another  place  ;  and  therefore  the  French  poets 
are  often  forced  upon  absurdities :  for  if  the  act  begins  in  a 
chamber,  all  the  persons  in  the  play  must  have  some  business  or 
other  to  come  thither,  or  else  they  are  not  to  be  shewn  that  act ; 
and  sometimes  their  characters  are  very  unfitting  to  appear  there  : 
as  suppose  it  were  the  king's  bed-chamber,  yet  the  meanest  man 
in  the  tragedy  must  come  and  dispatch  his  business  there,  rather 
than  in  the  lobby,  or  court-yard  (which  is  fitter  for  him),  for  fear 

8  happen;  imitation  of  French  usage. 


AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  241 

the  stage  should  be  cleared,  and  the  scenes  broken.  Many  times 
they  fall  by  it  into  a  greater  inconvenience ;  for  they  keep  their 
scenes  unbroken,  and  yet  change  the  place ;  as  in  one  of  their 
newest  plays,  where  the  act  begins  in  the  street.  There  a  gentle- 
man is  to  meet  his  friend ;  he  sees  him  with  his  man  coming  out 
from  his  father's  house  ;  they  talk  together,  and  the  first  goes  out : 
the  second,  who  is  a  lover,  has  made  an  appointment  with  his 
mistress ;  she  appears  at  the  window,  and  then  we  are  to  imagine 
the  scene  lies  under  it.  This  gentleman  is  called  away,  and 
leaves  his  servant  with  his  mistress  :  presently  her  father  is  heard 
from  within ;  the  young  lady  is  afraid  the  serving-man  should  be 
discovered,  and  thrusts  him  into  a  place  of  safety,  which  is  sup- 
posed to  be  her  closet.  After  this,  the  father  enters  to  the  daugh- 
ter, and  now  the  scene  is  in  a  house  :  for  he  is  seeking  from  one 
room  to  another  for  this  poor  Philipin,  or  French  Diego,  who  is 
heard  from  within,  drolling  and  breaking  many  a  miserable  conceit 
on  the  subject  of  his  sad  condition.  In  this  ridiculous  manner 
the  play  goes  forward,  the  stage  being  never  empty  the  while  :  so 
that  the  street,  the  window,  the  two  houses,  and  the  closet,  are 
made  to  walk  about,  and  the  persons  to  stand  still.  Now,  what,  I 
beseech  you,  is  more  easy  than  to  write  a  regular  French  play,  or 
more  difficult  than  to  write  an  irregular  English  one,  like  those  of 
Fletcher,  or  of  Shakespeare  ? 

If  they  content  themselves,  as  Corneille  did,  with  some  flat 
design,  which,  like  an  ill  riddle,  is  found  out  ere  it  be  half  pro- 
posed, such  plots  we  can  make  every  way  regular  as  easily  as  they ; 
but  whenever  they  endeavour  to  rise  to  any  quick  turns  and 
counter-turns  of  plot,  as  some  of  them  have  attempted,  since 
Corneille's  plays  have  been  less  in  vogue,  you  see  they  write  as 
irregularly  as  we,  though  they  cover  it  more  speciously.  Hence 
the  reason  is  perspicuous  why  no  French  plays,  when  translated, 
have,9  or  ever  can  succeed  on  the  English  stage.  For,  if  you 
consider  the  plots,  our  own  are  fuller  of  variety ;  if  the  writing, 
ours  are  more  quick  and  fuller  of  spirit ;  and  therefore  'tis  a 

9  Common  modern  blunder  of  omitting  past  participle  with  auxiliary. 


242  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

strange  mistake  in  those  who  decry  the  way  of  writing  plays  in 
verse,  as  if  the  English  therein  imitated  the  French.  We  have 
borrowed  nothing  from  them ;  our  plots  are  weaved  in  English 
looms  :  we  endeavour  therein  to  follow  the  variety  and  greatness 
of  characters,  which  are  derived  to  us  from  Shakespeare  and 
Fletcher ;  the  copiousness  and  well-knitting  of  the  intrigues  we 
have  from  Jonson ;  and  for  the  verse  itself  we  have  English  pre- 
cedents of  elder  date  than  any  of  Corneille's  plays.  Not  to 
name  our  old  comedies  before  Shakespeare,  which  were  all  writ  in 
verse  of  six  feet,  or  Alexandrines,  such  as  the  French  now  use,10 
I  can  shew  in  Shakespeare,  many  scenes  of  rhyme  together,  and 
the  like  in  Ben  Jonson's  tragedies  :  in  "  Catiline  "  and  "  Sejanus  " 
sometimes  thirty  or  forty  lines,  —  I  mean  besides  the  chorus,  or 
the  monologues;  which,  by  the  way,  shewed  Ben  no  enemy  to 
this  way  of  writing,  especially  if  you  read  his  "  Sad  Shepherd," 
which  goes  sometimes  on  rhyme,  sometimes  on  blank  verse,  like 
an  horse  who  eases  himself  on  trot  and  amble.  You  find  him 
likewise  commending  Fletcher's  pastoral  of  "  The  Faithful  Shep- 
herdess," which  is  for  the  most  part  rhyme,  though  not  refined  to 
that  purity  to  which  it  hath  since  been  brought.  And  these  exam- 
ples are  enough  to  clear  us  from  a  servile  imitation  of  the  French. 
But  to  return  whence  I  have  digressed  :  I  dare  boldly  affirm 
these  two  things  of  the  English  drama ;  —  First,  that  we  have 
many  plays  of  ours  as  regular  as  any  of  theirs,  and  which,  besides, 
have  more  variety  of  plot  and  characters ;  and,  secondly,  that  in 
most  of  the  irregular  plays  of  Shakespeare  or  Fletcher  (for  Ben 
Jonson's  are  for  the  most  part  regular),  there  is  a  more  masculine 
fancy,  and  greater  spirit  in  the  writing  than  there  is  in  any  of  the 
French.  I  could  produce,  even  in  Shakespeare's  and  Fletcher's 
works,  some  plays  which  are  almost  exactly  formed ;  as  the 
"Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  and  "The  Scornful  Lady":  but, 
because  (generally  speaking)  Shakespeare,  who  writ  first,  did  not 

10  «  Mr.  Malone  remarks  that  the  assertion  in  the  text  is  too  general,"  — 
(SCOTT),  which  is  a  very  just  remark,  for  all  the  older  plays  were  not  written 
in  'Jexandrines.  Cf.  ARNOLD'S  note. 


AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  243 

perfectly  observe  the  laws  of  comedy,  and  Fletcher,  who  came 
nearer  to  perfection,  yet  through  carelessness  made  many  faults ;  I 
will  take  the  pattern  of  a  perfect  play  from  Ben  Jonson,  who  was  a 
careful  and  learned  observer  of  the  dramatic  laws,  and  from  all  his 
comedies  I  shall  select  "  The  Silent  Woman,"  of  which  I  will  make 
a  short  examen,  according  to  those  rules  which  the  French  observe. 
As  Neander  was  beginning  to  examine  "  The  Silent  Woman," 
Eugenius,  earnestly  regarding  him ;  I  beseech  you,  Neander,  said 
he,  gratify  the  company,  and  me  in  particular,  so  far  as,  before 
you  speak  of  the  play,  to  give  us  a  character  of  the  author ;  and 
tell  us  frankly  your  opinion,  whether  you  do  not  think  all  writers, 
both  French  and  English,  ought  to  give  place  to  him? 

I  fear,  replied  Neander,  that,  in  obeying  your  commands,  I 
shall  draw  some  envy  on  myself.     Besides,  in  performing  them,  it 
will  be  first  necessary  to  speak  somewhat  of  Shakespeare  and 
Fletcher,  his  rivals  in  poesy ;  and  one  of  them,  in  my  opinion,  at 
least  his  equal,  perhaps  his  superior.11 

To  begin  then  with  Shakespeare.  He  was  the  man  who  of  all 
modern,  and  perhaps  ancient  poets,  had  the  largest  and  most 
comprehensive  soul.  All  the  images  of  nature  were  still  present 
to  him,  and  he  drew  them  not  laboriously,  but  luckily :  when  he 
describes  anything,  you  more  than  see  it,  you  feel  it  too.  Those 
who  accuse  him  to  have  wanted  learning,  give  him  the  greater 
commendation :  he  was  naturally  learned ;  he  needed  not  the 
spectacles  of  books  to  read  nature;  he  looked  inwards,  and 
found  her  there.  I  cannot  say  he  is  everywhere  alike ;  were  he 
so,  I  should  do  him  injury  to  compare  him  with  the  greatest  of 
mankind.  He  is  many  times  flat,  insipid';  his  comic  wit  degener- 
ating into  clenches,12  his  serious  swelling  into  bombast.  But  he 
is  always  great,  when  some  great  occasion  is  presented  to  him : 
no  man  can  say,  he  ever  had  a  fit  subject  for  his  wit,  and  did  not 
then  raise  himself  as  high  above  the  rest  of  poets, 

II  "  Mr.  Malone  justly  observes  that  the  caution  observed  in  this  decision 
proves  the  miserable  taste  of  the  age."  —  SCOTT. 

12  puns. 


244  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

Quantum  lenta  sclent  inter  -viburna  cupressi.™ 

The  consideration  of  this  made  Mr.  Hales  of  Eton  say,  that 
there  was  no  subject  of  which  any  poet  ever  writ,  but  he  would 
produce  it  much  better  done  in  Shakespeare ;  and  however  others 
are  now  generally  preferred  before  him,  yet  the  age  wherein  he 
lived,  which  had  contemporaries  with  him,  Fletcher  and  Jonson, 
never  equalled  them  to  him  in  their  esteem  :  and  in  the  last  king's 
court,  when  Ben's  reputation  was  at  highest,  Sir  John  Suckling, 
and  with  him  the  greater  part  of  the  courtiers,  set  our  Shake- 
speare far  above  him. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  of  whom  I  am  next  to  speak,  had, 
with  the  advantage  of  Shakespeare's  wit,  which  was  their  pre- 
cedent, great  natural  gifts  improved  by  study;  Beaumont  espe- 
cially being  so  accurate  a  judge  of  plays  that  Ben  Jonson,  while  he 
lived,  submitted  all  his  writings  to  his  censure,  and  'tis  thought, 
used  his  judgment  in  correcting,  if  not  contriving,  all  his  plots. 
What  value  he  had  for  him,  appears  by  the  verses  he  writ  to  him ; 
and  therefore  I  need  speak  no  farther  of  it.  The  first  play  that 
brought  Fletcher  and  him  in  esteem,  was  their  "  Philaster  " ;  for 
before  that,  they  had  written  two  or  three  very  unsuccessfully :  as 
the  like  is  reported  of  Ben  Jonson  before  he  writ  "  Every  Man  in 
his  Humour."  Their  plots  were  generally  more  regular  than 
Shakespeare's,  especially  those  which  were  made  before  Beau- 
mont's death ;  and  they  understood  and  imitated  the  conversation 
of  gentlemen  much  better ;  whose  wild  debaucheries,  and  quick- 
ness of  wit  in  repartees,  no  poet  before  them  could  paint  as  they 
have  done.  Humour,14  which  Ben  Jonson  derived  from  particular 
persons,  they  made  it  not  their  business  to  describe  :  they  repre- 
sented all  the  passions  very  lively,  but  above  all,  love.  I  am  apt 
to  believe  the  English  language  in  them  arrived  to  its  highest 
perfection;  what  words  have  since  been  taken  in,  are  rather 
superfluous  than  ornamental.  Their  plays  are  now  the  most 

18  As  the  cypresses  are  among  the  pliant  shrubs.  —  VlRGlL,  Eclogues,  I.  26. 
14  "  Humour,  in  the  ancient  dramatic  language,  signified  some  peculiar  01 
fantastic  bias,  or  habit  of  mind,  in  an  individual."  —  SCOTT. 


AN  ESSAY  OF  DRAMATIC  POESY.  245 

leasant  and  frequent  entertainments  of  the  stage ;  two  of  theirs 
being  acted  through  the  year  for  one  of  Shakespeare's  or  Jonson's  : 
the  reason  is,  because  there  is  a  certain  gaiety  in  their  comedies, 
and  pathos  in  their  more  serious  plays,  which  suits  generally  with 
all  men's  humours.  Shakespeare's  language  is  likewise  a  little 
obsolete,  and  Ben  Jonson's  wit  comes  short  of  theirs. 

As  for  Jonson,  to  whose  character  I  am  now  arrived,  if  we  look 
upon  him  while  he  was  himself  (for  his  last  plays  were  but  his 
dotages),  I  think  him  the  most  learned  and  judicious  writer  which 
any  theatre  ever  had.  He  was  a  most  severe  judge  of  himself,  as 
well  as  others.  One  cannot  say  he  wanted  wit,  but  rather  that  he 
was  frugal  of  it.  In  his  works  you  find  little  to  retrench  or  alter. 
Wit  and  language,  and  humour  also  in  some  measure,  we  had 
before  him ;  but  something  of  art  was  wanting  to  the  drama  till  he 
came.  He  managed  his  strength  to  more  advantage  than  any 
who  preceded  him.  You  seldom  find  him  making  love  in  any  of 
his  scenes,  or  endeavouring  to  move  the  passions ;  his  genius  was 
too  sullen  and  saturnine  to  do  it  gracefully,  especially  when  he 
knew  he  came  after  those  who  had  performed  both  to  such  an 
height.  Humour  was  his  proper  sphere  ;  and  in  that  he  delighted 
most  to  represent  mechanic  people.  He  was  deeply  conversant 
in  the  ancients,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  and  he  borrowed  boldly 
from  them  :  there  is  scarce  a  poet  or  historian  among  the  Roman 
authors  of  those  times,  whom  he  has  not  translated  in  "  Sejanus  " 
and  "  Catiline."  But  he  has  done  his  robberies  so  openly,  that 
one  may  see  he  fears  not  to  be  taxed  by  any  law.  He  invades 
authors  like  a  monarch ;  and  what  would  be  theft  in  other  poets, 
is  only  victory  in  him.  With  the  spoils  of  these  writers  he  so 
represents  old  Rome  to  us,  in  its  rights,  ceremonies,  and  customs, 
that  if  one  of  their  poets  had  written  either  of  his  tragedies,  we 
had  seen  less  of  it  than  in  him.  If  there  was  any  fault  in  his 
language,  it  was  that  he  weaved  it  too  closely  and  laboriously,  in 
his  comedies  especially :  perhaps  too,  he  did  a  little  too  much 
Romanize  our  tongue,  leaving  the  words  which  he  translated 
almost  as  much  Latin  as  he  found  them :  wherein,  though  he 


246  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

learnedly  followed  their  language,  he  did  not  enough  comply  with 
the  idiom  of  ours.  If  I  would  compare  him  with  Shakespeare,  I 
must  acknowledge  him  the  more  correct  poet,  but  Shakespeare 
the  greater  wit.15  Shakespeare  was  the  Homer,  or  father  of  our 
dramatic  poets ;  Jonson  was  the  Virgil,  the  pattern  of  elaborate 
writing :  I  admire  him,  but  I  love  Shakespeare.  To  conclude  of 
him ;  as  he  has  given  us  the  most  correct  plays,  so  in  the  precepts 
which  he  has  laid  down  in  his  "  Discoveries,"  16  we  have  as  many 
and  profitable  rules  for  perfecting  the  stage,  as  any  wherewith  the 
French  can  furnish  us. 

Having  thus  spoken  of  the  author,  I  proceed  to  the  examina- 
tion of  his  comedy,  "The  Silent  Woman." 

is  « Dryden  here  understands  wit  in  the  enlarged  sense  of  invention  or 
genius."  —  SCOTT. 

16  Mr.  Thomas  Arnold,  who  has  just  published  in  the  Clarendon  Press 
Series  a  useful  edition  of  this  Essay  of  Dryden's,  says,  in  a  note  on  the 
"Discoveries":  "The  praise  which  Dryden  gives  to  the  book  is  excessive." 
I  cannot  think  so,  and  in  confirmation  of  this  view,  I  would  refer  to  an  excel- 
lent article  on  the  "  Discoveries,"  by  the  poet  Swinburne,  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  for  July,  1888,  and  to  his  "  Study  of  Ben  Jonson."  Mr.  Saintsbury  also 
shows  a  high  appreciation  of  Jonson's  prose  style,  in  his  "  History  of  Eliza- 
bethan Literature"  (pp.  218-220). 


XIII. 

2.  DEFENCE  OF  THE  EPILOGUE,    OR  AH  ESSAY  ON 
THE  DRAMATIC  POETRY  OF  THE  LAST  AGE. 

[Written  about  1670.] 

THE  promises  of  authors,  that  they  will  write  again,  are,  in 
effect,  a  threatening  of  their  readers  with  some  new  imperti- 
nence ;  and  they,  who  perform  not  what  they  promise,  will  have 
their  pardon  on  easy  terms.  It  is  from  this  consideration,  that  I 
could  be  glad  to  spare  you  the  trouble,  which  I  am  now  giving  you, 
of  a  postscript,  if  I  were  not  obliged,  by  many  reasons,  to  write 
somewhat  concerning  our  present  plays,  and  those  of  our  prede- 
cessors on  the  English  stage.  The  truth  is,  I  have  so  far  engaged 
myself  in  a  bold  epilogue  to  this  play,  wherein  I  have  somewhat 
taxed  the  former  writing,  that  it  was  necessary  for  me  either  not 
to  print  it,  or  to  shew  that  I  could  defend  it.  Yet  I  would  so 
maintain  my  opinion  of  the  present  age,  as  not  to  be  wanting  in 
my  veneration  for  the  past :  I  would  ascribe  to  dead  authors  their 
just  praises  in  those  things  wherein  they  have  excelled  us ;  and  in 
those  wherein  we  contend  with  them  for  the  pre-eminence,  I 
would  acknowledge  our  advantages  to  the  age,  and  claim  no  vic- 
tory from  our  wit.  This  being  what  I  have  proposed  to  myself,  I 
hope  I  shall  not  be  thought  arrogant  when  I  inquire  into  their 
errors ;  for  we  live  in  an  age  so  sceptical  that,  as  it  determines 
little,  so  it  takes  nothing  from  antiquity  on  trust ;  and  I  profess  to 
have  no  other  ambition  in  this  essay  than  that  poetry  may  not  go 
backward,  when  all  other  arts  and  sciences  are  advancing.  Who- 
ever censures  me  for  this  inquiry,  let  him  hear  his  character  from 
Horace  : 

347 


248  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

Ingeniis  non  ille  favet,  plauditque  sepultis, 
Nostra  sed  impugnat;  nos  nostraque  lividus  odit,11 

He  favours  not  dead  wits  but  hates  the  living. 

It  was  upbraided  to  that  excellent  poet,  that  he  was  an  enemy  to 
the  writings  of  his  predecessor  Lucilius,  because  he  said,  Lu- 
cilium  lutulentum fluere™  that  he  ran  muddy ;  and  that  he  ought 
to  have  retrenched  from  his  satires  many  unnecessary  verses.  But 
Horace  makes  Lucilius  himself  to  justify  him  from  the  imputation 
of  envy,  by  telling  you  that  he  would  have  done  the  same,  had  he 
lived  in  an  age  which  was  more  refined  : 

Si  for et  hoc  nostrum  fato  delapsus  \_dilatus~\  in  cevum, 
Detereret  sibi  multa,  recideret  otnne  quod  ultra 
Perfectum  traheretur™  &c. 

And,  both  in  the  whole  course  of  that  satire,  and  in  his  most  admira- 
ble Epistle  to  Augustus,  he  makes  it  his  business  to  prove  that  antiq- 
uity alone  is  no  plea  for  the  excellency  of  a  poem ;  but  that,  one 
age  learning  from  another,  the  last  (if  we  can  suppose  an  equality 
of  wit  in  the  writers),  has  the  advantage  of  knowing  more  and 
better  than  the  former.  And  this,  I  think,  is  the  state  of  the 
question  in  dispute.  It  is  therefore  my  part  to  make  it  clear.that 
the  language,  wit,  and  conversation  of  our  age,  are  improved  and 
refined  above  the  last ;  and  then  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  infer 
that  our  plays  have  received  some  part  of  those  advantages. 

In  the  first  place,  therefore,  it  will  be  necessary  to  state  in  gen- 
eral, what  this  refinement  is,  of  which  we  treat ;  and  that,  I  think, 
will  not  be  defined  amiss,  "  An  improvement  of  our  Wit,  Language, 
and  Conversation :  or,  an  alteration  in  them  for  the  better." 

To  begin  with  Language.     That  an  alteration  is  lately  made  in 

17  He  does  not  favor  and  applaud  buried  wits,  but  attacks  our  own;  envious, 
he  hates  us  and  our  wits.  —  HORACE,  Epistles,  II.  I.  88-89. 

18  HORACE,  Satires,  I.  4.  n,  and  I.  10.  58. 

19  If  he  had  been  brought  down  by  fate  to  this  age  of  ours,  he  would  erase 
much  from  his  works,  he  would  cut  out  everything  that  was  carried  beyond 
comphsion.  —  HORACE,  Satires,  I.  10.  76-78. 


DEFENCE   OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  24$. 

ours,  or  since  the  writers  of  the  last  age  (in  which  I  comprehend 
Shakespeare,  Fletcher,  and  Jonson),  is  manifest.  Any  man  who 
reads  those  excellent  poets,  and  compares  their  language  with  what 
is  now  written,  will  see  it  almost  in  every  line ;  but  that  this  is  an 
improvement  of  the  language,  or  an  alteration  for  the  better,  will 
not  so  easily  be  granted.  For  many  are  of  a  contrary  opinion, 
that  the  English  tongue  was  then  in  the  height  of  its  perfection ; 
that  from  Jonson's  time  to  ours  it  has  been  in  a  continual  declina- 
tion, like  that  of  the  Romans  from  the  age  of  Virgil  to  Statius, 
and  so  downward  to  Claudian ;  of  which,  not  only  Petronius,  but 
Quintilian  himself  so  much  complains,  under  the  person  of  Se- 
cundus,  in  his  famous  dialogue,  De  Causis  corrupts  Eloquential 

But,  to  show  that  our  language  is  improved  and  that  those 
people  have  not  a  just  value  for  the  age  in  which  they  live,  let  us 
consider  in  what  the  refinement  of  a  language  principally  consists ; 
that  is,  "  either  in  rejecting  such  old  words,  or  phrases,  which  are 
ill  sounding,  or  improper ;  or  in  admitting  new,  which  are  more 
proper,  more  sounding,  and  more  significant." 

The  reader  will  easily  take  notice,  that  when  I  speak  of  reject- 
ing improper  words  and  phrases,  I  mention  not  such  as  are 
antiquated  by  custom  only,  and,  as  I  may  say,  without  any  fault  of 
theirs.  For  in  this  case  the  refinement  can  but  be  accidental ; 
that  is,  when  the  words  and  phrases,  which  are  rejected,  happen 
to  be  improper.  Neither  would  I  be  understood,  when  I  speak 
of  impropriety  of  language,  either  wholly  to  accuse  the  last  age,  or 
to  excuse  the  present,  and  least  of  all  myself;  for  all  writers  have 
their  imperfections  and  failings ;  but  I  may  safely  conclude  in  the 
general,  that  our  improprieties  are  less  frequent,  and  less  gross 
than  theirs.  One  testimony  of  this  is  undeniable,  that  we  are  the 
first  who  have  observed  them ;  and,  certainly,  to  observe  errors  is 
a  great  step  to  the  correcting  of  them.  But,  malice  and  partiality 
set  apart,  let  any  man  who  understands  English,  read  diligently 
the  works  of  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher,  and  I  dare  undertake  that 
he  will  find  in  every  page  either  some  solecism  of  speech,  or  some 

20  On  the  causes  of  the  corruption  of  Eloquence. 


250  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

notorious  flaw  in  sense ;  and  yet  these  men  are  reverenced,  when 
we  are  not  forgiven.  That  their  wit  is  great,  and  many  times 
their  expressions  noble,  envy  itself  cannot  deny. 

Neque  ego  illis  detrahere  ausim 
Harentem  capiti  multd  cum  laude  coronam?1 

But  the  times  were  ignorant  in  which  they  lived.  Poetry  was  then, 
if  not  in  its  infancy  among  us,  at  least  not  arrived  to  its  vigour  and 
maturity.  Witness  the  lameness  of  their  plots ;  many  of  which, 
especially  those  which  they  writ  first  (for  even  that  age  refined 
itself  in  some  measure),  were  made  up  of  some  ridiculous  incohe- 
rent story,  which  in  one  play  many  times  took  up  the  business  of 
an  age.  I  suppose  I  need  not  name  "  Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre," 
nor  the  historical  plays  of  Shakespeare ;  besides  many  of  the  rest, 
as  the  "Winter's  Tale,"  "Love's  Labour  Lost,"  "Measure  for 
Measure,"  which  were  either  grounded  on  impossibilities,  or  at 
least  so  meanly  written,  that  the  comedy  neither  caused  your  mirth, 
nor  the  serious  part  your  concernment.  If  I  would  expatiate  on 
this  subject,  I  could  easily  demonstrate  that  our  admired  Fletcher, 
who  wrote  after  him,  neither  understood  correct  plotting,  nor  that 
which  they  call  "  the  decorum  of  the  stage."  I  would  not  search 
in  his  worst  plays  for  examples.  He  who  will  consider  his  "  Phil- 
aster,"  his  "  Humorous  Lieutenant,"  his  "  Faithful  Shepherdess," 
and  many  others  which  I  could  name,  will  find  them  much  below 
the  applause  which  is  now  given  them.  He  will  see  Philaster 
wounding  his  mistress,  and  afterwards  his  boy,  to  save  himself; 
not  to  mention  the  Clown,  who  enters  immediately,  and  not  only 
has  the  advantage  of  the  combat  against  the  hero,  but  diverts  you 
from  your  serious  concernment,  with  his  ridiculous  and  absurd 
raillery.  In  his  "  Humorous  Lieutenant,"  you  find  his  Demetrius 
and  Leontius  staying  in  the  midst  of  a  routed  army,  to  hear  the 
cold  mirth  of  the  Lieutenant ;  and  Demetrius  afterwards  appear- 

21  Nor  may  I  dare  to  take  away  from  them  a  crown  placed  on  their  brows 
with  great  praise.  —  HORACE,  Satires,  I.  10.  56-57.  Read  cum  multd  for 
multd  cum. 


DEFENCE   OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  251 

ing  with  a  pistol  in  his  hand,  in  the  next  age  to  Alexander  the 
Great.22  And  for  his  Shepherd,  he  falls  twice  into  the  former  in- 
decency of  wounding  women.  But  these  absurdities,  which  those 
poets  committed,  may  more  properly  be  called  the  age's  fault  than 
theirs.  For,  besides  the  want  of  education  and  learning  (which 
was  their  particular  unhappiness),  they  wanted  the  benefit  of  con- 
verse :  But  of  that  I  shall  speak  hereafter,  in  a  place  more  proper 
for  it.  Their  audiences  knew  no  better,  and  therefore  were  satis- 
fied with  what  they  brought.  Those  who  call  theirs  the  golden 
age  of  poetry,  have  only  this  reason  for  it,  that  they  were  then 
content  with  acorns  before  they  knew  the  use  of  bread ;  or  that 
"AXi?  8/avos K  was  become  a  proverb.  They  had  many  who 
admired  them,  and  few  who  blamed  them ;  and  certainly  a  severe 
critic  is  the  greatest  help  to  a  good  wit :  he  does  the  office  of  a 
friend,  while  he  designs  that  of  an  enemy ;  and  his  malice  keeps  a 
poet  within  those  bounds,  which  the  luxuriancy  of  his  fancy  would 
tempt  him  to  overleap. 

But  it  is  not  their  plots  which  I  meant  principally  to  tax ;  I  was 
speaking  of  their  sense  and  language  ;  and  I  dare  almost  challenge 
any  man  to  shew  me  a  page  together  which  is  correct  in  both. 
As  for  Ben  Jonson,  I  am  loth  to  name  him,  because  he  is  a  most 
judicious  writer;  yet  he  very  often  falls  into  these  errors;  and  I 
once  more  beg  the  reader's  pardon  for  accusing  him  of  them. 
Only  let  him  consider  that  I  live  in  an  age  where  my  least  faults 
are  severely  censured ;  and  that  I  have  no  way  left  to  extenuate 
my  failings,  but  by  shewing  as  great  in  those  whom  we  admire  : 

C&dimus,  inque  vicem  prabemus  crura  sagittis.u 

I  cast  my  eyes  but  by  chance  on  "  Catiline  "  ;  and  in  the  three  or 
four  last  pages,  found  enough  to  conclude  that  Jonson  writ  not 
correctly. 

22  "  In  these  criticisms  we  see  the  effects  of  the  refinement  which  our  stage 
had  now  borrowed  from  the  French."  —  SCOTT. 

28  Enough  of  the  oak. 

24  We  strike,  and  in  turn  -we  present  our  legs  to  strokes. —  PERSIUS,  Satires, 
IV.  42. 


252  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

"  Let  the  long-hid  seeds 
Of  treason,  in  thee,  now  shoot  forth  in  deeds 
Ranker  than  horror." 

In  reading  some  bombastic  speeches  of  Macbeth,  which  are  not 
to  be  understood,  he  used  to  say  that  it  was  horror ;  and  I  am 
much  afraid  that  this  is  so. 

"  Thy  parricide  late  on  thy  only  son, 
After  his  mother,  to  make  empty  way 
For  thy  last  wicked  nuptials,  worse  than  they 
That  blaze  that  act  of  thy  incestuous  life, 
Which  gain'd  thee  at  once  a  daughter  and  a  wife." 

The  sense  is  here  extremely  perplexed ;  and  I  doubt  the  word 

they  is  false  grammar. 

"  And  be  free 
Not  heaven  itself  from  thy  impiety." 

A  synchysis,23  or  ill-placing  of  words,  of  which  Tully  so  much 
complains  in  oratory. 

"  The  waves  and  dens  of  beasts  could  not  receive 
The  bodies  that  those  souls  were  frighted  from." 

The  preposition  in  the  end  of  the  sentence ;  a  common  fault 
with  him,  and  which  I  have  but  lately  observed  in  my  own  writings. 

"  What  all  the  several  ills  that  visit  earth, 
Plague,  famine,  fire,  could  not  reach  unto, 
The  sword,  nor  surfeits,  let  thy  fury  do." 

Here  are  both  the  former  faults ;  for,  besides  that  the  preposi- 
tion unto  is  placed  last  in  the  verse,  and  at  the  half  period,  and  is 
redundant,  there  is  the  former  synchysis  in  the  words  "  the  sword, 
nor  surfeits,"  which  in  construction  ought  to  have  been  placed 
before  the  other. 

Catiline  says  of  Cethegus,  that  for  his  sake  he  would 

"  Go  on  upon  the  gods,  kiss  lightning,  wrest 
The  engine  from  the  Cyclops,  and  give  fire 
At  face  of  a  full  cloud,  and  stand  his  ire" 

25  confusion. 


DEFENCE    OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  253 

To  "  go  on  upon,"  is  only  to  go  on  twice.  To  "  give  fire  at  face 
of  a  full  cloud,"  was  not  understood  in  his  own  time ;  "  and  stand 
his  ire,"  besides  the  antiquated  word  ire,  there  is  the  article  his, 
which  makes  false  construction  :  and  giving  fire  at  the  face  of  a 
cloud,  is  a  perfect  image  of  shooting,  however  it  came  to  be  known 
in  those  days  to  Catiline. 

"Others  there  are, 

Whom  envy  to  the  state  draws  and  pulls  on, 
For  contumelies  received;  and  such  are  sure  ones." 

Ones,  in  the  plural  number  :  but  that  is  frequent  with  him  ;  for 
he  says,  not  long  after, 

"  Caesar  and  Crassus,  if  they  be  ill  men, 
Are  mighty  ones. 
Such  men,  they  do  not  succour  more  the  cause,  &c." 

They  redundant. 

"  Though  heaven  should  speak  with  all  his  wrath  at  once, 
We  should  stand  upright  and  unfear'd." 

His  is  ill  syntax  with  heaven ;  and  by  unf eared  he  means  un- 
afraid:  Words  of  a  quite  contrary  signification. 

"The  ports  are  open."  He  perpetually  uses  ports  for  gates; 
which  is  an  affected  error  in  him,  to  introduce  Latin  by  the  loss  of 
the  English  idiom ;  as,  in  the  translation  of  Tully's  speeches,  he 
usually  does. 

Well-placing  of  words,  for  the  sweetness  of  pronunciation,  was 
not  known  till  Mr.  Waller  introduced  it ;  and,  therefore,  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  if  Ben  Jonson  has  many  such  lines  as  these  :  — 

"But  being  bred  up  in  his  father's  needy  fortunes;    brought  up  in's  sister's 
prostitution,"  &c. 

But  meanness  of  expression  one  would  think  not  to  be  his  error 
in  a  tragedy,  which  ought  to  be  more  high  and  sounding  than  any 
other  kind  of  poetry ;  and  yet  amongst  others,  in  "  Catiline,"  I 
find  these  four  lines  together  :  — 


254  JOHN  DR  YD  EN. 

"  So  Asia,  thou  art  cruelly  even 
With  us,  for  all  the  blows  thee  given; 
When  we,  whose  virtues  conquered  thee, 
Thus  by  thy  vices  ruin'd  be." 

Be  there  is  false  English  for  are  ;  though  the  rhyme  hides  it. 

But  I  am  willing  to  close  the  book,  partly  out  of  veneration 
to  the  author,  partly  out  of  weariness  to  pursue  an  argument  which 
is  so  fruitful  in  so  small  a  compass.  And  what  correctness,  after 
this,  can  be  expected  from  Shakespeare,  or  from  Fletcher,  who 
wanted  that  learning  and  care  which  Jonson  had?  I  will,  there- 
fore, spare  my  own  trouble  of  inquiring  into  their  faults ;  who,  had 
they  lived  now,  had  doubtless  written  more  correctly.  I  suppose 
it  will  be  enough  for  me  to  affirm  (as  I  think  I  safely  may) ,  that 
these,  and  the  like  errors,  which  I  taxed  in  the  most  correct  of  the 
last  age  are  such  into  which  we  do  not  ordinarily  fall.  I  think 
few  of  our  present  writers  would  have  left  behind  them  such  a 
line  as  this  :  — 

"  Contain  your  spirit  in  more  stricter  bounds." 

But  that  gross  way  of  two  comparatives  was  then  ordinary  ;  and, 
therefore,  more  pardonable  in  Jonson. 

As  for  the  other  part  of  refining,  which  consists  in  receiving  new 
words  and  phrases,  I  shall  not  insist  much  on  it.  It  is  obvious 
that  we  have  admitted  many,  some  of  which  we  wanted,  and 
therefore  our  language  is  the  richer  for  them,  as  it  would  be  by 
importation  of  bullion  :  Others  are  rather  ornamental  than  neces- 
sary; yet,  by  their  admission,  the  language  is  become  more 
courtly,  and  our  thoughts  are  better  drest.  These  are  to  be  found 
scattered  in  the  writings  of  our  age,  and  it  is  not  my  business  to 
collect  them.  They  who  have  lately  written  with  most  care,  have, 
I  believe,  taken  the  rule  of  Horace  for  their  guide  ;  that  is,  not  to 
be  too  hasty  in  receiving  of  words,  but  rather  stay  till  custom  has 
made  them  familiar  to  us. 

Quern  penes  arbitrium  est,  etjus,  et  norma  loquendi^ 

26  In  whose  power  is  tke  control  and  law  and  rule  of  speech.  —  HORACE,  Ars 
Poetica,  72. 


DEFENCE    OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  255 

For  I  cannot  approve  of  their  way  of  refining,  who  corrupt  our 
English  idiom  by  mixing  it  too  much  with  French  :  That  is  a 
sophistication  of  language,  not  an  improvement  of  it;  a  turning 
English  into  French,  rather  than  a  refining  of  English  by  French. 
We  meet  daily  with  those  fops,  who  value  themselves  on  their 
travelling,  and  pretend  they  cannot  express  their  meaning  in 
English,  because  they  would  put  off  to  us  some  French  phrase  of 
the  last  edition ;  without  considering  that,  for  aught  they  know, 
we  have  a  better  of  our  own.  But  these  are  not  the  men  who  are 
to  refine  us ;  their  talent  is  to  prescribe  fashions,  not  words  :  at 
best,  they  are  only  serviceable  to  a  writer,  so  as  Ennius  was  to 
Virgil.  He  may  aurum  ex  stercore  colligere :  *  For  it  is  hard  if, 
amongst  many  insignificant  phrases,  there  happen  not  something 
worth  preserving ;  though  they  themselves,  like  Indians,  know  not 
the  value  of  their  own  commodity. 

There  is  yet  another  way  of  improving  language,  which  poets 
especially  have  practised  in  all  ages  ;  that  is,  by  applying  received 
words  to  a  new  signification ;  and  this,  I  believe,  is  meant  by 
Horace,  in  that  precept  which  is  so  variously  construed  by 
expositors  : 

Dixeris  egregie,  notum  si  callida  verbum 
Reddideriljunctura  novum  ,28 

And,  in  this  way,  he  himself  had  a  particular  happiness ;  using 
all  the  tropes,  and  particular  metaphors,  with  that  grace  which  is 
observable  in  his  Odes,  where  the  beauty  of  expression  is  often 
greater  than  that  of  thought ;  as,  in  that  one  example,  amongst  an 
infinite  number  of  others,  "  Et  vultus  nimium  lubricus  aspici."  ffl 

And  therefore,  though  he  innovated  a  little,  he  may  justly  be 
called  a  great  refiner  of  the  Roman  tongue.  This  choice  of 
words,  and  heightening  of  their  natural  signification,  was  observed 

27  collect  gold  from  refuse. 

28  You  will  have  spoken  well,  if  a  skilful  conjunction  has  made  a  known 
word  new.  —  HORACE,  Ars  Poetica,  47—48. 

29  And  a  countenance  too  dangerous  [lit.  slippery]  to  look  at.  —  HORACE, 
Odes,  I.  19.  8. 


256  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

in  him  by  the  writers  of  the  following  ages ;  for  Petronius  says  of 
him,  "  Et  Horatii  curiosa  felicitas." z  By  this  graffing,  as  I  may 
call  it,  on  old  words,  has  our  tongue  been  beautified  by  the 
three  before-mentioned  poets,  Shakespeare,  Fletcher,  and  Jonson, 
whose  excellencies  I  can  never  enough  admire ;  and  in  this  they 
have  been  followed,  especially  by  Sir  John  Suckling  and  Mr. 
Waller,  who  refined  upon  them.  Neither  have  they  who  suc- 
ceeded them  been  wanting  in  their  endeavours  to  adorn  our 
mother  tongue  :  But  it  is  not  so  lawful  for  me  to  praise  my  living 
contemporaries,  as  to  admire  my  dead  predecessors. 

I  should  now  speak  of  the  refinement  of  Wit ;  but  I  have  been 
so  large  on  the  former  subject,  that  I  am  forced  to  contract  my- 
self in  this.  I  will  therefore  only  observe  to  you  that  the  wit  of 
the  last  age  was  yet  more  incorrect  than  their  language.  Shake- 
speare, who  many  times  has  written  better  than  any  poet  in  any 
language,  is  yet  so  far  from  writing  wit  always,  or  expressing  that 
wit  according  to  the  dignity  of  the  subject,  that  he  writes,  in  many 
places,  below  the  dullest  writers  of  ours,  or  any  precedent  age. 
Never  did  any  author  precipitate  himself  from  such  height  of 
thought  to  so  low  expressions,  as  he  often  does.  He  is  the  very 
Janus  of  poets ;  he  wears  almost  everywhere  two  faces ;  and  you 
have  scarce  begun  to  admire  the  one,  ere  you  despise  the  other. 
Neither  is  the  luxuriance  of  Fletcher,  which  his  friends  have  taxed 
in  him,  a  less  fault  than  the  carelessness  of  Shakespeare.  He  does 
not  well  always ;  and,  when  he  does,  he  is  a  true  Englishman  — 
he  knows  not  when  to  give  over.  If  he  wakes  in  one  scene,  he 
commonly  slumbers  in  another ;  and,  if  he  pleases  you  in  the  first 
three  acts,  he  is  frequently  so  tired  with  his  labour  that  he  goes 
heavily  in  the  fourth,  and  sinks  under  his  burden  in  the  fifth. 

For  Ben  Jonson,  the  most  judicious  of  poets,  he  always  writ 
properly,  and  as  the  character  required ;  and  I  will  not  contest 
farther  with  my  friends,  who  call  that  wit :  it  being  very  certain 
that  even  folly  itself,  well  represented,  is  wit  in  a  larger  significa- 
tion ;  and  that  there  is  fancy,  as  well  as  judgment,  in  it,  though  not 

80  And  ike  careful  aptness  of  Horace.  —  PETRONIUS,  1 1 8.  5. 


DEFENCE   OF  THE  EPILOGUE,  257 

so  much  or  noble  :  because  all  poetry  being  imitation,  that  of  folly 
is  a  lower  exercise  of  fancy,  though  perhaps  as  difficult  as  the 
other ;  for  it  is  a  kind  of  looking  downward  in  the  poet,  and  repre- 
senting that  part  of  mankind  which  is  below  him. 

In  these  low  characters  of  vice  and  folly,  lay  the  excellency  of 
that  inimitable  writer ;  who,  when  at  any  time  he  aimed  at  wit  in 
the  strictest  sense,  that  is,  sharpness  of  conceit,  was  forced  either 
to  borrow  from  the  ancients,  as  to  my  knowledge  he  did  very  much 
from  Plautus ;  or,  when  he  trusted  himself  alone,  often  fell  into 
meanness  of  expression.  Nay,  he  was  not  free  from  the  lowest  and 
most  grovelling  kind  of  wit,  which  we  call  clenches,31  of  which 
"  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  "  is  infinitely  full ;  and,  which  is  worse, 
the  wittiest  persons  in  the  drama  speak  them.  His  other  comedies 
are  not  exempt  from  them.  Will  you  give  me  leave  to  name 
some  few?  Asper,  in  which  character  he  personates  himself  (and 
he  neither  was  nor  thought  himself  a  fool),  exclaiming  against  the 
ignorant  judges  of  the  age,  speaks  thus  : 

"  How  monstrous  and  detested  is't,  to  see 
A  fellow  that  has  neither  art  nor  brain, 
Sit  like  an  Aristarchns,  or  stark-ass, 
Taking  men's  lives,  with  a  tobacco  face, 
In  snuff"  &c. 

And  presently  after  :  "  I  marvel  whose  wit  'twas  to  put  a  prologue 
in  yond  Sackbut's  mouth.  They  might  well  think  he  would  be 
out  of  tune,  and  yet  you'd  play  upon  him  too."  —  Will  you  have 
another  of  the  same  stamp  ?  "  O,  I  cannot  abide  these  limbs  of 
sattin,  or  rather  Satan" 

But,  it  may  be,  you  will  object  that  this  was  Asper,  Macilente, 
or  Carlo  Buffone  ;  you  shall,  therefore,  hear  him  speak  in  his  own 
person,  and  that  in  the  two  last  lines,  or  sting  of  an  epigram.  It 
is  inscribed  to  Fine  Grand,  who,  he  says,  was  indebted  to  him  for 
many  things  which  he  reckons  there  ;  and  concludes  thus  : 

"  Forty  things  more,  dear  Grand,  which  you  know  true, 
For  which,  or  pay  me  quickly,  or  I'll  pay  you." 

81  puns. 


258  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

This  was  then  the  mode  of  wit,  the  vice  of  the  age,  and  not  Ben 
Jonson's ;  for  you  see,  a  little  before  him,  that  admirable  wit,  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  perpetually  playing  with  his  words.  In  his  time,  I 
believe,  it  ascended  first  into  the  pulpit,  where  (if  you  will  give  me 
leave  to  clench  too)  it  yet  finds  the  benefit  of  its  clergy ;  for  they 
are  commonly  the  first  corruptors  of  eloquence,  and  the  last  re- 
formed from  vicious  oratory ;  as  a  famous  Italian  has  observed 
before  me,  in  his  Treatise  of  the  Corruption  of  the  Italian  Tongue  ; 
which  he  principally  ascribes  to  priests  and  preaching  friars. 

But  to  conclude  with  what  brevity  I  can,  I  will  only  add  this 
in  defence  of  our  present  writers,  that,  if  they  reach  not  some 
excellencies  of  Ben  Jonson  (which  no  age,  I  am  confident,  ever 
shall) ,  yet,  at  least,  they  are  above  that  meanness  of  thought  which 
I  have  taxed,  and  which  is  frequent  in  him. 

That  the  wit  of  this  age  is  much  more  courtly,  may  easily  be 
proved  by  viewing  the  characters  of  gentlemen  which  were  written 
in  the  last.  First  for  Jonson  :  —  True-wit,  in  "  The  Silent  Woman," 
was  his  master-piece  ;  and  True-wit  was  a  scholar-like  kind  of  man,  a 
gentleman  with  an  allay  of  pedantry,  a  man  who  seems  mortified  to 
the  world  by  much  reading.  The  best  of  his  discourse  is  drawn,  not 
from  the  knowledge  of  the  town,  but  books ;  and,  in  short,  he 
would  be  a  fine  gentleman  in  an  university.  Shakespeare  shewed 
the  best  of  his  skill  in  his  Mercutio ;  and  he  said  himself  that 
he  was  forced  to  kill  him  in  the  third  act,  to  prevent  being  killed 
by  him.  But,  for  my  part,  I  cannot  find  he  was  so  dangerous  a 
person  :  I  see  nothing  in  him  but  what  was  so  exceeding  harmless 
that  he  might  have  lived  to  the  end  of  the  play,  and  died  in  his 
bed,  without  offence  to  any  man. 

Fletcher's  Don  John  is  our  only  bugbear ;  and  yet  I  may  affirm, 
without  suspicion  of  flattery,  that  he  now  speaks  better,  and  that 
his  character  is  maintained  with  much  more  vigour  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  acts,  than  it  was  by  Fletcher  in  the  three  former.  I  have 
always  acknowledged  the  wit  of  our  predecessors,  with  all  the 
veneration  which  becomes  me,  but,  I  am  sure,  their  wit  was  not 
that  of  gentlemen;  there  was  ever  somewhat  that  was  ill-bred 


DEFENCE    OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  259 

and  clownish  in  it,  and  which  confessed  the  conversation  of  the 
authors. 

And  this  leads  me  to  the  last  and  greatest  advantage  of  our  writ- 
ing, which  proceeds  from  conversation.  In  the  age  wherein  those 
poets  lived,  there  was  less  of  gallantry  than  in  ours ;  neither  did 
they  keep  the  best  company  of  theirs.  Their  fortune  has  been 
much  like  that  of  Epicurus,  in  the  retirement  of  his  gardens  ;  to  live 
almost  unknown,  and  to  be  celebrated  after  their  decease.  I 
cannot  find  that  any  of  them  had  been  conversant  in  courts, 
except  Ben  Jonson ;  and  his  genius  lay  not  so  much  that  way  as 
to  make  an  improvement  by  it.  Greatness  was  not  then  so  easy 
of  access,  nor  conversation  so  free,  as  now  it  is.  I  cannot,  there- 
fore, conceive  it  any  insolence  to  affirm  that  by  the  knowledge 
and  pattern  of  their  wit  who  writ  before  .us,  and  by  the  advantage 
of  our  own  conversation,  the  discourse  and  raillery  of  our  com- 
edies excel  what  has  been  written  by  them.  And  this  will  be 
denied  by  none,  but  some  few  old  fellows  who  value  themselves  on 
their  acquaintance  with  the  Black  Friars ;  who,  because  they  saw 
their  plays,  would  pretend  a  right  to  judge  ours.  The  memory  of 
these  grave  gentlemen  is  their  only  plea  for  being  wits.  They  can 
tell  a  story  of  Ben  Jonson,  and,  perhaps,  have  had  fancy  enough 
to  give  a  supper  in  the  Apollo,  that  they  might  be  called  his 
sons : ffl  And,  because  they  were  drawn  in  to  be  laughed  at  in 
those  times,  they  think  themselves  now  sufficiently  entitled  to 
laugh  at  ours.  Learning  I  never  saw  in  any  of  them  ;  and  wit  no 
more  than  they  could  remember.  In  short,  they  were  unlucky 
to  have  been  bred  in  an  unpolished  age,  and  more  unlucky  to  live 
to  a  refined  one.  They  have  lasted  beyond  their  own,  and  are 
cast  behind  ours ;  and,  not  contented  to  have  known  little  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  they  boast  of  their  ignorance  at  threescore. 

Now,  if  they  ask  me,  whence  it  is  that  our  conversation  is  so 
much  refined?  I  must  freely,  and  without  flattery,  ascribe  it  to 

82  "The  Apollo  was  Ben  Jonson 's  favourite  club-room  in  the  Devil's  Tavern. 
The  custom  of  adopting  his  admirers  and  imitators  by  bestowing  upon  them  the 
title  of  Son,  is  often  alluded  to  in  his  works."  —  SCOTT. 


260  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

the  court ;  and,  in  it,  particularly  to  the  king,  whose  example  gives 
a  law  to  it.  His  own  misfortunes,  and  the  nation's,  afforded  him 
an  opportunity,  which  is  rarely  allowed  to  sovereign  princes, 
I  mean  of  travelling,  and  being  conversant  in  the  most  polished 
courts  of  Europe ;  and,  thereby,  of  cultivating  a  spirit  which  was 
formed  by  nature  to  receive  the  impressions  of  a  gallant  and  gen- 
erous education.  At  his  return,  he  found  a  nation  lost  as  much  in 
barbarism  as  in  rebellion.  And,  as  the  excellency  of  his  nature 
forgave  the  one,  so  the  excellency  of  his  manners  reformed  the 
other.  The  desire  of  imitating  so  great  a  pattern  first  awakened 
the  dull  and  heavy  spirits  of  the  English  from  their  natural 
reservedness ;  loosened  them  from  their  stiff  forms  of  conversa- 
tion, and  made  them  easy  and  pliant  to  each  other  in  discourse. 
Thus,  insensibly,  our  way. of  living  became  more  free ;  and  the  fire 
of  the  English  wit,  which  was  before  stifled  under  a  constrained, 
melancholy  way  of  breeding,  began  first  to  display  its  force  by 
mixing  the  solidity  of  our  nation  with  the  air  and  gayety  of  our 
neighbours.  This  being  granted  to  be  true,  it  would  be  a  wonder 
if  the  poets,  whose  work  is  imitation,  should  be  the  only  persons 
in  three  kingdoms  who  should  not  receive  advantage  by  it ;  or,  if 
they  should  not  more  easily  imitate  the  wit  and  conversation  of 
the  present  age  than  of  the  past. 

Let  us  therefore  admire  the  beauties  and  the  heights  of  Shake- 
speare, without  falling  after  him  into  carelessness,  and,  as  I  may 
call  it,  a  lethargy  of  thought,  for  whole  scenes  together.  Let  us 
imitate,  as  we  are  able,  the  quickness  and  easiness  of  Fletcher, 
without  proposing  him  as  a  pattern  to  us,  either  in  the  redundancy 
of  his  matter,  or  the  incorrectness  of  his  language.  Let  us  admire 
his  wit  and  sharpness  of  conceit;  but  let  us  at  the  same  time 
acknowledge  that  it  was  seldom  so  fixed,  and  made  proper  to  his 
character,  as  that  the  same  things  might  not  be  spoken  by  any 
person  in  the  play.  Let  us  applaud  his  scenes  of  love  ;  but  let  us 
confess  that  he  understood  not  either  greatness  or  perfect  honour 
in  the  parts  of  any  of  his  women.  In  fine,  let  us  allow  that  he 
had  so  much  fancy,  as  when  he  pleased  he  could  write  wit ;  but 


DEFENCE   OF  THE  EPILOGUE.  261 

that  he  wanted  so  much  judgment,  as  seldom  to  have  written 
humour,  or  described  a  pleasant  folly.  Let  us  ascribe  to  Jonson 
the  height  and  accuracy  of  judgment  in  the  ordering  of  his  plots, 
his  choice  of  characters,  and  maintaining  what  he  had  chosen  to 
the  end  :  But  let  us  not  think  him  a  perfect  pattern  of  imitation, 
except  it  be  in  humour ;  for  love,  which  is  the  foundation  of  all 
comedies  in  other  languages,  is  scarcely  mentioned  in  any  of  his 
plays :  And  for  humour  itself,  the  poets  of  this  age  will  be  more 
wary  than  to  imitate  the  meanness  of  his  persons.  Gentlemen 
will  now  be  entertained  with  the  follies  of  each  other ;  and,  though 
they  allow  Cobb  and  Tibb  ^  to  speak  properly,  yet  they  are  not 
much  pleased  with  their  tankard,  or  with  their  rags  :  And  surely 
their  conversation  can  be  no  jest  to  them  on  the  theatre,  when 
they  would  avoid  it  in  the  street. 

To  conclude  all,  let  us  render  to  our  predecessors  what  is  their 
due,  without  confining  ourselves  to  a  servile  imitation  of  all  they 
writ ;  and,  without  assuming  to  ourselves  the  title  of  better  poets, 
let  us  ascribe  to  the  gallantry  and  civility  of  our  age  the  advantage 
which  we  have  above  them,  and,  to  our  knowledge  of  the  customs 
and  manners  of  it,  the  happiness  we  have  to  please  beyond  them. 

88  A  water-bearer  and  his  wife,  characters  in  Ben  Jonson's  "  Every  Man  in 
his  Humour."  Cobb  is  named  in  the  Epilogue  to  Dryden's  "  Conquest  of 
Granada." 


XIII. 

3.   PREFACE  TO   THE  FABLES. 

[Written  in  1699.] 

IT  remains  that  I  say  something  of  Chaucer  in  particular.84 
In  the  first  place,  as  he  is  the  father  of  English  poetry,  so  I  hold 
him  in  the  same  degree  of  veneration  as  the  Grecians  held  Homer, 
or  the  Romans  Virgil.  He  is  a  perpetual  fountain  of  good  sense ; 
learned  in  all  sciences  ;  and,  therefore,  speaks  properly  on  all  sub- 
jects. As  he  knew  what  to  say,  so  he  knows  also  when  to  leave  off; 
a  continence  which  is  practised  by  few  writers,  and  scarcely  by 
any  of  the  ancients,  excepting  Virgil  and  Horace.  One  of  our  late 
great  poets35  is  sunk  in  his  reputation,  because  he  could  never 
forgive  any  conceit  which  came  in  his  way ;  but  swept,  like  a 
drag-net,  great  and  small.  There  was  plenty  enough,  but  the 
dishes  were  ill  sorted ;  whole  pyramids  of  sweetmeats  for  boys  and 
women,  but  little  of  solid  meat  for  men.  All  this  proceeded  not 
from  any  want  of  knowledge,  but  of  judgment.  Neither  did  he 
want  that  in  discerning  the  beauties  and  faults  of  other  poets,  but 
only  indulged  himself  in  the  luxury  of  writing ;  and  perhaps  knew  it 
was  a  fault,  but  hoped  the  reader  would  not  find  it.  For  this  reason, 
though  he  must  always  be  thought  a  great  poet,  he  is  no  longer 
esteemed  a  good  writer ;  and  for  ten  impressions,  which  his  works 
have  had  in  so  many  successive  years,  yet  at  present  a  hundred 
books  are  scarcely  purchased  once  a  twelvemonth ;  for,  as  my  last 
Lord  Rochester  said,  though  somewhat  profanely,  "  Not  being  of 
God,  he  could  not  stand." 

Chaucer  followed  nature  everywhere,  but  was  never  so  bold  to 
go  beyond  her ;  and  there  is  a  great  difference  of  being  poeta  and 
nimis  poeta,^  if  we  may  believe  Catullus,  as  much  as  betwixt  a 
modest  behaviour  and  affectation.  The  verse  of  Chaucer,  I  con- 
fess, is  not  harmonious  to  us ;  but  it  is  like  the  eloquence  of  one 
whom  Tacitus  commends,  it  was  auribus  istius  temporis  accommo- 

31  Dryden  had  just  drawn  a  parallel  between  Ovid  and  Chaucer,  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  latter.  8i  Cowley.  ^  loo  much  a  poet. 
262 


PREFACE    TO    THE  FABLES.  263 

data?1  They  who  lived  with  him,  and  some  time  after  him,  thought 
it  musical ;  and  it  continues  so  even  in  our  judgment,  if  compared 
with  the  numbers  of  Lidgate  and  Gower,  his  contemporaries  •  — 
there  is  the  rude  sweetness  of  a  Scotch  tune  in  it,  which  is  natural 
and  pleasing,  though  not  perfect.  It  is  true,  I  cannot  go  so  far  as 
he  x  who  published  the  last  edition  of  him ;  for  he  would  make  us 
believe  the  fault  is  in  our  ears,  and  there  were  really  ten  syllables 
in  a  verse  where  we  find  but  nine ;  but  this  opinion  is  not  worth 
confuting ;  it  is  so  gross  and  obvious  an  error,  that  common  sense 
(which  is  a  rule  in  everything  but  matters  of  faith  and  revelation) 
must  convince  the  reader  that  equality  of  numbers,  in  every  verse 
which  we  call  heroic,  was  either  not  known,  or  not  always  prac- 
tised, in  Chaucer's  age.  It  were  an  easy  matter  to  produce  some 
thousands  of  his  verses,  which  are  lame  for  want  of  half  a  foot, 
and  sometimes  a  whole  one,  and  which  no  pronunciation  can  make 
otherwise.39  We  can  only  say  that  he  lived  in  the  infancy  of  our 
poetry,  and  that  nothing  is  brought  to  perfection  at  the  first.  We 
must  be  children  before  we  grow  men.  There  was  an  Ennius, 
and  in  process  of  time  a  Lucilius,  and  a  Lucretius,  before  Virgil 
and  Horace ;  even  after  Chaucer  there  was  a  Spenser,  a  Harring- 
ton, a  Fairfax,  before  Waller  and  Denham  were  in  being ;  and  our 
numbers  were  in  their  nonage  till  these  last  appeared.  I  need 
say  little  of  his  parentage,  life  and  fortunes ;  they  are  to  be  found 
at  large  in  all  the  editions  of  his  works.  He  was  employed 
abroad,  and  favoured,  by  Edward  III,  Richard  II,  and  Henry  IV, 
and  was  poet,  as  I  suppose,  to  all  three  of  them.  In  Richard's 
time,  I  doubt,  he  was  a  little  dipt  in  the  rebellion  of  the  Com- 
mons ;  and  being  brother-in-law  to  John  of  Gaunt,  it  was  no  won- 
.der  if  he  followed  the  fortunes  of  that  family ;  and  was  well  with 
Henry  IV  when  he  had  deposed  his  predecessor.  Neither  is  it 
to  be  admired  that  Henry,  who  was  a  wise  as  well  as  a  valiant 
prince,  who  claimed  by  succession,  and  was  sensible  that  his  title 
was  not  sound,  but  was  rightfully  in  Mortimer,  who  had  married 

87  suited  to  the  ears  of  that  time.  —  TACITUS,  Annals,  XIII.  3. 

88  Thomas  Speght. 

89  Dryden  was  ignorant  of  Chaucer's  grammar  and  pronunciation,  on  which 
his  rhythm  depends,  and  hence  made  these  erroneous  statements. 


264  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

the  heir  of  York ;  it  was  not  to  be  admired,  I  say,  if  that  great 
politician  should  be  pleased  to  have  the  greatest  wit  of  those 
times  in  his  interests,  and  to  be  the  trumpet  of  his  praises.  Au- 
gustus had  given  him  the  example,  by  the  advice  of  Maecenas, 
who  recommended  Virgil  and  Horace  to  him ;  whose  praises 
helped  to  make  him  popular  while  he  was  alive,  and  after  his 
death  have  made  him  precious  to  posterity.  As  for  the  religion 
of  our  poet,  he  seems  to  have  some  little  bias  towards  the  opinions 
of  Wickliffe,  after  John  of  Gaunt  his  patron  ;  somewhat  of  which 
appears  in  the  tale  of  "Pierce  Plowman;"40  yet  I  cannot  blame 
him  for  inveighing  so  sharply  against  the  vices  of  the  clergy  in 
his  age  :  their  pride,  their  ambition,  their  pomp,  their  avarice, 
their  worldly  interest,  deserved  the  lashes  which  he  gave  them, 
^)oth  in  that,  and  in  most  of  his  "  Canterbury  Tales."  Neither 
aas  his  contemporary  Boccace  spared  them  :  Yet  both  those  poets 
lived  in  much  esteem  with  good  and  holy  men  in  orders ;  for  the 
scandal  which  is  given  by  particular  priests  reflects  not  on  the 
sacred  function  :  Chaucer's  Monk,  his  Canon  and  his  Friar,  took 
not  from  the  character  of  his  Good  Parson.  A  satirical  poet  is 
the  check  of  the  laymen  on  bad  priests.  We  are  only  to  take 
care,  that  we  involve  not  the  innocent  with  the  guilty  in  the  same 
condemnation.  The  good  cannot  be  too  much  honoured,  nor  the 
bad  too  coarsely  used  :  for  the  corruption  of  the  best  becomes  the 
worst.  When  a  clergyman  is  whipped,  his  gown  is  first  taken  off, 
by  which  the  dignity  of  his  order  is  secured.  If  he  be  wrongfully 
accused,  he  has  his  action  of  slander ;  and  it  is  at  the  poet's  peril 
if  he  transgress  the  law.  But  they  will  tell  us,  that  all  kind  of 
satire,  though  never  so  well  deserved  by  particular  priests,  yet 
brings  the  whole  order  into  contempt.  Is  then  the  peerage  of 
England  anything  dishonoured  when  a  peer  suffers  for  his  treason  ? 
If  he  [be  ?]  libelled,  or  any  way  defamed,  he  has  his  scandalum  mag- 
natum 41  to  punish  the  offender.  They  who  use  this  kind  of  argu- 

40  Langland's  "  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman,"  whose  views  Dryden  seems  to 
confound  with  Chaucer's,  and  his  poem  with  the  spurious  "  Plowman's  Tale." 

41  "A  defamatory  speech  or  writing  made  or  published  to  the  injury  of  a 
person  of  dignity." 


PREFACE    TO    THE  FABLES.  265 

ment,  seem  to  be  conscious  to  themselves  of  somewhat  which  has 
deserved  the  poet's  lash,  and  are  less  concerned  for  their  public 
capacity  than  for  their  private ;  at  least  there  is  pride  at  the  bot- 
tom of  their  reasoning.  If  the  faults  of  men  in  orders  are  only  to 
be  judged  among  themselves,  they  are  all  in  some  sort  parties ; 
for,  since  they  say  the  honour  of  their  order  is  concerned  in  every 
member  of  it,  how  can  we  be  sure  that  they  will  be  impartial 
judges?  How  far  I  may  be  allowed  to  speak  my  opinion  in  this 
case,  I  know  not ;  but  I  am  sure  a  dispute  of  this  nature  caused 
mischief  in  abundance  betwixt  a  king  of  England  and  an  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury ;  one  standing  up  for  the  laws  of  his  land, 
and  the  other  for  the  honour,  as  he  called  it,  of  God's  church ; 
which  ended  in  the  murder  of  the  prelate,  and  in  the  whipping  of 
his  majesty  from  post  to  pillar  for  his  penance.  The  learned  and 
ingenious  Dr.  Drake  has  saved  one  the  labour  of  inquiring  into  the 
esteem  and  reverence  which  the  priests  have  had  of  old ;  and  I 
would  rather  extend  than  diminish  any  part  of  it ;  yet  I  must 
needs  say,  that  when  a  priest  provokes  me  without  any  occasion 
given  him,  I  have  no  reason,  unless  it  be  the  charity  of  a  Chris- 
tian, to  forgive  him  :  prior  Icesit^  is  justification  sufficient  in  the 
civil  law.  If  I  answer  him  in  his  own  language,  self-defence,  I 
am  sure,  must  be  allowed  me ;  and  if  I  carry  it  farther,  even  to  a 
sharp  recrimination,  somewhat  may  be  indulged  to  human  frailty. 
Yet  my  resentment  has  not  wrought  so  far,  but  that  I  have  fol- 
lowed Chaucer  in  his  character  of  a  holy  man,  and  have  en- 
larged on  that  subject  with  some  pleasure,  reserving  to  myself  the 
right,  if  I  shall  think  fit  hereafter,  to  describe  another  sort  of 
priests,  such  as  are  more  easily  to  be  found  than  the  Good  Parson ; 
such  as  have  given  the  last  blow  to  Christianity  in  this  age,  by  a 
practice  so  contrary  to  their  doctrine.  But  this  will  keep  cold  till 
another  time.43  In  the  meanwhile,  I  take  up  Chaucer  where  I  left 
him. 

42  he  first  did  the  injitry. 

48  This  digression  of  Dryden's  seems  to  be  aimed  at  Jeremy  Collier,  whose 
"  Short  View  of  the  Profaneness  and  Immorality  of  the  English  Stage  "  was 
published  in  1698. 


266  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

He  must  have  been  a  man  of  a  most  wonderful  comprehensive 
nature,  because,  as  it  has  been  truly  observed  of  him,  he  has  taken 
into  the  compass  of  his  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  the  various  manners 
and  humours  (as  we  now  call  them)  of  the  whole  English  nation 
in  his  age.  Not  a  single  character  has  escaped  him.  All  his  pil- 
grims are  severally  distinguished  from  each  other ;  and  not  only 
in  their  inclinations,  but  in  their  very  physiognomies  and  persons. 
Baptista  Porta44  could  not  have  described  their  natures  better 
than  by  the  marks  which  the  poet  gives  them. 

The  matter  and  manner  of  their  tales,  and  of  their  telling,  are 
so  suited  to  their  different  educations,  humours,  and  callings,  that 
each  of  them  would  be  improper  in  any  other  mouth.  Even  the 
grave  and  serious  characters  are  distinguished  by  their  several 
sorts  of  gravity  :  their  discourses  are  such  as  belong  to  their  age, 
their  calling,  and  their  breeding ;  such  as  are  becoming  of  them, 
and  of  them  only.  Some  of  his  persons  are  vicious,  and  some 
virtuous ;  some  are  unlearned,  or  (as  Chaucer  calls  them)  lewd,45 
and  some  are  learned.  Even  the  ribaldry  of  the  low  characters  is 
different ;  the  Reeve,  the  Miller,  and  the  Cook,  are  several  men, 
and  distinguished  from  each  other  as  much  as  the  mincing  Lady 
Prioress,  and  the  broad-speaking,  gap-toothed,46  Wife  of  Bath. 
But  enough  of  this  ;  there  is  such  a  variety  of  game  springing  up 
before  me,  that  I  am  distracted  in  my  choice,  and  know  not  which 
to  follow.  It  is  sufficient  to  say,  according  to  the  poorest,  that 
here  is  God's  plenty.  We  have  our  forefathers  and  great-grand- 
dames  all  before  us,  as  they  were  in  Chaucer's  days ;  their  general 
characters  are  still  remaining  in  mankind,  and  even  in  England, 
though  they  are  called  by  other  names  than  those  of  monks,  and 
friars,  and  canons,  and  lady  abbesses,  and  nuns ;  for  mankind  is 
ever  the  same,  and  nothing  lost  out  of  nature,  though  everything 
is  altered.  May  I  have  leave  to  do  myself  the  justice,  (since  my 

44  "  A  famous  Italian  physiognomist." 

45  lewd  meant  unlearned  in  Chaucer's  time. 

46  gat-tothed,  Prologue,  468,  having  teeth  wide  apart.     See  note  in  Skeat's 
edition  of  Morris's  "  Prologue  and  Knight's  Tale." 


PREFACE    TO    THE  FABLES.  267 

enemies  will  do  me  none,  and  are  so  far  from  granting  me  to  be  a 
good  poet,  that  they  will  not  allow  me  so  much  as  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, or  a  moral  man,)  may  I  have  leave,  I  say,  to  inform  my 
reader,  that  I  have  confined  my  choice  to  such  tales  of  Chaucer 
as  savour  nothing  of  immodesty.  If  I  had  desired  more  to  please 
than  to  instruct,  the  Reeve,  the  Miller,  the  Shipman,  the  Merchant, 
the  Sumner,  and,  above  all,  the  Wife  of  Bath,  in  the  prologue  to 
her  tale,  would  have  procured  me  as  many  friends  and  readers,  as 
there  are  beaux  and  ladies  of  pleasure  in  the  town.  But  I  will  no 
more  offend  against  good  manners.  I  am  sensible,  as  I  ought  to 
be,  of  the  scandal  I  have  given  by  my  loose  writings ;  and  make 
what  reparation  I  am  able,  by  this  public  acknowledgment.  If 
anything  of  this  nature,  or  of  profaneness,  be  crept  into  these 
poems,  I  am  so  far  from  defending  it,  that  I  disown  it,  totum  hoc 
indicium  volo?  Chaucer  makes  another  manner  of  apology  for 
his  broad  speaking,  and  Boccace  makes  the  like ;  but  I  will  follow 
neither  of  them.48 

***##» 
I  have  almost  done  with  Chaucer,  when  I  have  answered  some 
objections  relating  to  my  present  work.  I  find  some  people  are 
offended  that  I  have  turned  these  tales  into  modern  English ; 
because  they  think  them  unworthy  of  my  pains,  and  look  on 
Chaucer  as  a  dry,  old-fashioned  wit,  not  worthy  reviving.  I  have 
often  heard  the  late  Earl  of  Leicester  say,  that  Mr.  Cowley  himself 
was  of  that  opinion ;  who,  having  read  him  over  at  my  lord's 
request,  declared  he  had  no  taste  of  him.  I  dare  not  advance  my 
opinion  against  the  judgment  of  so  great  an  author;  but  I  think 
it  fair,  however,  to  leave  the  decision  to  the  public.  Mr.  Cowley 
was  too  modest  to  set  up  for  a  dictator ;  and  being  shocked  per- 
haps with  his  old  style,  never  examined  into  the  depth  of  his 
good  sense.  Chaucer,  I  confess,  is  a  rough  diamond,  and  must 
first  be  polished,  ere  he  shines.  I  deny  not  likewise,  that,  living 
in  our  early 'days  of  poetry,  he  writes  not  always  of  a  piece;  but 

47  /  wish  it  altogether  -unsaid. 

48  Dryden  quotes  here  Chaucer's  Prologue,  726-742,  with  brief  comment. 


268  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

sometimes  mingles  trivial  things  with  those  of  greater  moment. 
Sometimes  also,  though  not  often,  he  runs  riot,  like  Ovid,  and 
knows  not  when  he  has  said  enough.  But  there  are  more  great 
wits  beside  Chaucer,  whose  fault  is  their  excess  of  conceits,  and 
those  ill-sorted.  An  author  is  not  to  write  all  he  can,  but  only  all 
he  ought.  Having  observed  this  redundancy  in  Chaucer,  (as  it 
is  an  easy  matter  for  a  man  of  ordinary  parts  to  find  a  fault  in 
one  of  greater,)  I  have  not  tied  myself  to  a  literal  translation  ;  but 
have  often  omitted  what  I  judged  unnecessary,  or  not  of  dignity 
enough  to  appear  in  the  company  of  better  thoughts.  I  have 
presumed  farther,  in  some  places,  and  added  somewhat  of  my 
own  where  I  thought  my  author  was  deficient,  and  had  not  given 
his  thoughts  their  true  lustre,  for  want  of  words  in  the  beginning 
of  our  language.  And  to  this  I  was  the  more  emboldened, 
because  (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  it  of  myself)  I  found  I 
had  a  soul  congenial  to  his,  and  that  I  had  been  conversant  in  the 
same  studies.  Another  poet,  in  another  age,  may  take  the  same 
liberty  with  my  writings ;  if  at  least  they  live  long  enough  to  de- 
serve correction.  It  was  also  necessary  sometimes  to  restore  the 
sense  of  Chaucer,  which  was  lost  or  mangled  in  the  errors  of  the 
press.  Let  this  example  suffice  at  present :  in  the  story  of  Pala- 
mon  and  Arcite,  where  the  temple  of  Diana  is  described,  you  find 
these  verses  in  all  the  editions  of  our  author  : 

"  Ther  saw  I  Dane  yturned  til  a  tree, 
I  mene  not  hire  the  goddesse  Diane, 
But  Venus  daughter,  which  that  hight  Dane;"49 

which,  after  a  little  consideration,  I  knew  was  to  be  reformed  into 
this  sense,  —  that  Daphne,  the  daughter  of  Peneus,  was  turned 
into  a  tree.  I  durst  not  make  thus  bold  with  Ovid,  lest  some 
future  Milbourne  should  arise,  and  say,  I  vary  from  my  author, 
because  I  understood  him  not. 

But  there  are  other  judges,  who  think  I  ought  not  to  have  trans- 
lated Chaucer  into  English,  out  of  a  quite  contrary  notion  :  they 

49  This  error  of  Venus  for  Peneus  was  corrected  by  Tyrwhitt,  being  an  error 
of  the  press;  but  Dryden  reads  hight  for  hight'e,  which  destroys  the  rhythm. 
For  a  better  text,  see  Skeat's  Morris's  Knight's  Tale,  1204-1206. 


PREFACE    TO    THE  FABLES.  269 

suppose  there  is  a  certain  veneration  due  to  his  old  language ;  and 
that  it  is  little  less  than  profanation  and  sacrilege  to  alter  it. 
They  are  farther  of  opinion,  that  somewhat  of  his  good  sense  will 
suffer  in  this  transfusion,  and  much  of  the  beauty  of  his  thoughts 
will  infallibly  be  lost,  which  appear  with  more  grace  in  their  old 
habit.  Of  this  opinion  was  that  excellent  person,  whom  I  men- 
tioned, the  late  Earl  of  Leicester,  who  valued  Chaucer  as  much  as 
Mr.  Cowley  despised  him.  My  lord  dissuaded  me  from  this 
attempt,  (for  I  was  thinking  of  it  some  years  before  his  death,) 
and  his  authority  prevailed  so  far  with  me,  as  to  defer  my  under- 
taking while  he  lived,  in  deference  to  him  :  yet  my  reason  was  not 
convinced  with  what  he  urged  against  it.  If  the  first  end  of  a 
writer  be  to  be  understood,  then,  as  his  language  grows  obsolete, 
his  thoughts  must  grow  obscure  : 

Multa  renascentur,  qu<z  jam  cecidere,  cadentque 
Qua  nunc  sunt  in  ho  nor  e  vocabula,  si  volet  usus, 
Quern  penes  arbitrium  cst  etjus  et  nor  ma  loquendi.^ 

When  an  ancient  word,  for  its  sound  and  significancy,  deserves 
to  be  revived,  I  have  that  reasonable  veneration  for  antiquity  to 
restore  It.  All  beyond  this  is  superstition.  Words  are  not  like 
landmarks,  so  sacred  as  never  to  be  removed ;  customs  are 
changed,  and  even  statutes  are  silently  repealed,  when  the  reason 
ceases  for  which  they  were  enacted.  As  for  the  other  part  of  the 
argument,  —  that  his  thoughts  will  lose  of  their  original  beauty  by 
the  innovation  of  words,  —  in  the  first  place,  not  only  their  beauty, 
but  their  being  is  lost,  where  they  are  no  longer  understood,  which 
is  the  present  case.  I  grant  that  something  must  be  lost  in  all 
transfusion,  that  is,  in  all  translations ;  but  the  sense  will  remain, 
which  would  otherwise  be  lost,  or  at  least  be  maimed  when  it  is 
scarce  intelligible,  and  that  but  to  a  few.  How  few  are  there,  who 
can  read  Chaucer  so  as  to  understand  him  perfectly  ?  And  if  im- 
perfectly, then  with  less  profit,  and  no  pleasure.  It  is  not  for  the 
use  of  some  old  Saxon  friends,  that  I  have  taken  these  pains  with 

63  Many  words  will  revive  that  have  nonv  fallen,  and  will  fall  that  are  now 
in  honor,  if  custom  wills  it,  in  whose  power  is  the  decision  and  the  law  and 
the  rule  of  speech.  —  HORACE,  Ars  Poetica,  70-72. 


270  JOHN  DRYDEN. 

him  :  let  them  neglect  my  version,  because  they  have  no  need  of 
it.  I  made  it  for  their  sakes,  who  understand  sense  and  poetry  as 
well  as  they,  when  that  poetry  and  sense  is  put  into  words  which 
they  understand.  I  will  go  farther,  and  dare  to  add,  that  what 
beauties  I  lose  in  some  places,  I  give  to  others  which  had  them  not 
originally :  but  in  this  I  may  be  partial  to  myself;  let  the  reader 
judge,  and  I  submit  to  his  decision.  Yet  I  think  I  have  just  occa- 
sion to  complain  of  them,  who,  because  they  understand  Chaucer, 
would  deprive  the  greater  part  of  their  countrymen  of  the  same 
advantage,  and  hoard  him  up,  as  misers  do  their  grandam  gold, 
only  to  look  on  it  themselves,  and  hinder  others  from  making 
use  of  it.  In  sum,  I  seriously  protest  that  no  man  ever  had,  or 
can  have,  a  greater  veneration  for  Chaucer  than  myself.  I  have 
translated  some  part  of  his  works,  only  that  I  might  perpetuate  his 
memory,  or  at  least  refresh  it,  amongst  my  countrymen.  If  I  have 
altered  him  anywhere  for  the  better,  I  must  at  the  same  time 
acknowledge  that  I  could  have  done  nothing  without  him.  Facile 
est  inventis  addere*1  is  no  great  commendation;  and  I  am  not  so 
vain  to  think  I  have  deserved  .a  greater.  I  will  conclude  what  I 
have  to  say  of  him  singly,  with  this  one  remark :  A  lady  of  my 
acquaintance,  who  keeps  a  kind  of  correspondence  with  some 
authors  of  the  fair  sex  in  France,  has  been  informed  by  them  that 
Mademoiselle  de  Scuderi,  who  is  as  old  as  Sibyl,  and  inspired  like 
her  by  the  same  god  of  poetry,  is  at  this  time  translating  Chaucer 
into  modern  French.52  From  which  I  gather,  that  he  has  been 
formerly  translated  into  the  old  Provengal ;  for  how  she  should  come 
to  understand  old  English,  I  know  not.  But  the  matter  of  fact 
being  true,  it  makes  me  think  that  there  is  something  in  it  like 
fatality ;  that,  after  certain  periods  of  time,  the  fame  and  memory 
of  great  wits  should  be  renewed,  as  Chaucer  is  both  in  France 
and  England.  If  this  be  wholly  chance,  it  is  extraordinary ;  and  I 
dare  not  call  it  more,  for  fear  of  being  taxed  with  superstition. 

61  //  is  easy  to  add  to  -what  has  been  found. 

52  "  This  lady  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-four  .  .  ,  [and]  died  about  eighteen 
months  after  this  discourse  was  written.  There  is  no  reason  to  think  she  was 
seriously  engaged  in  translating  Chaucer."  —  SCOTT. 


XIV. 

JONATHAN    SWIFT. 

(1667-1745.) 

A  FULL  AND  TRUE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  BATTLE  FOUGHT 
LAST  FRIDAY  BETWEEN  THE  ANCIENT  AND  THE 
MODERN  BOOKS  IN  SAINT  JAMESES  LIBRARY. 

[Published  in  1704,  but  written  in  1697.] 

THE  BOOKSELLER  TO  THE  READER. 

THE  following  discourse,  as  it  is  unquestionably  of  the  same 
author,  so  it  seems  to  have  been  written  about  the  same  time  with 
["The  Tale  of  a  Tub  "]*,  I  mean  the  year  1697,  when  the  famous 
dispute  was  on  foot  about  Ancient  and  Modern  Learning.  The 
controversy  took  its  rise  from  an  essay  of  Sir  William  Temple's 
upon  that  subject ;  which  was  answered  by  W.  Wotton,  B.  D.,  with 
an  appendix  by  Dr.  Bentley,  endeavouring  to  destroy  the  credit  of 
^Esop  and  Phalaris  for  authors,  whom  Sir  William  Temple  had, 
in  the  essay  before  mentioned,  highly  commended.  In  that 
appendix  the  Doctor  falls  hard  upon  a  new  edition  of  Phalaris, 
put  out  by  the  Honourable  Charles  Boyle,  now  Earl  of  Orrery, 
to  which  Mr.  Boyle  replied  at  large  with  great  learning  and  wit ; 
and  the  Doctor  voluminously  rejoined.  In  this  dispute  the  town 
highly  resented  to  see  a  person  of  Sir  William  Temple's  charac- 
ter and  merits  roughly  used  by  the  two  reverend  gentlemen  afore- 
said, and  without  any  manner  of  provocation.  At  length,  there  ap- 
pearing no  end  of  the  quarrel,  our  author  tells  us  that  the  BOOKS 
in  St.  James's  Library,  looking  upon  themselves  as  parties  princi- 

*  "  the  former,"  in  the  original  text,  as  the  two  books  were  published 
together. 

271 


272  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

pally  concerned,  took  up  the  controversy,  and  came  to  a  decisive 
battle ;  but  the  manuscript,  by  the  injury  of  fortune  or  weather, 
being  in  several  places  imperfect,  we  cannot  learn  to  which  side 
the  victory  fell. 

I  must  warn  the  reader  to  beware  of  applying  to  persons  what 
is  here  meant  only  of  books,  in  the  most  literal  sense.  So,  when 
Virgil  is  mentioned,  we  are  not  to  understand  the  person  of  a 
famous  poet  called  by  that  name  ;  but  only  certain  sheets  of  paper 
bound  up  in  leather,  containing  in  print  the  works  of  the  said 
poet :  and  so  of  the  rest. 

THE  PREFACE  OF  THE  AUTHOR. 

SATIRE  is  a  sort  of  glass  wherein  beholders  do  generally  discover 
everybody's  face  but  their  own ;  which  is  the  chief  reason  for  that 
kind  of  reception  it  meets  with  in  the  world,  and  that  so  very  few 
are  offended  with  it.  But,  if  it  should  happen  otherwise,  the 
danger  is  not  great ;  and  I  have  learned  from  long  experience 
never  to  apprehend  mischief  from  those  understandings  I  have 
been  able  to  provoke :  for  anger  and  fury,  though  they  add 
strength  to  the  sinews  of  the  body,  yet  are  found  to  relax  those  of 
the  mind,  and  to  render  all  its  efforts  feeble  and  impotent. 

There  is  a  brain  that  will  endure  but  one  scumming ;  let  the 
owner  gather  it  with  discretion,  and  manage  his  little  stock  with 
husbandry ;  but,  of  all  things,  let  him  beware  of  bringing  it  under 
the  lash  of  his  betters,  because  that  will  make  it  all  bubble  up 
into  impertinence,  and  he  will  find  no  new  supply.  Wit  without 
knowledge  being  a  sort  of  cream,  which  gathers  in  a  night  to  the 
top,  and  by  a  skilful  hand  may  be  soon  whipped  into  froth ;  but 
once  scummed  away,  what  appears  underneath  will  be  fit  for 
nothing  but  to  be  thrown  to  the  hogs. 


THE  BATTLE    OF   THE   BOOKS.  273 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  BOOKS. 

WHOEVER  examines,  with  due  circumspection,  into  the  annual 
records  of  Time,  will  find  it  remarked  that  War  is  the  child  of 
Pride,  and  Pride  the  daughter  of  Riches  :  —  the  former  of  which 
assertions  may  be  soon  granted,  but  one  cannot  so  easily  subscribe 
to  the  latter ;  for  Pride  is  nearly  related  to  Beggary  and  Want, 
either  by  father  or  mother,  and  sometimes  by  both  :  and,  to  speak 
naturally,  it  very  seldom  happens  among  men  to  fall  out  when  all 
have  enough ;  invasions  usually  travelling  from  north  to  south, 
that  is  to  say,  from  poverty  to  plenty.  The  most  ancient  and 
natural  grounds  of  quarrels  are  lust  and  avarice ;  which,  though 
we  may  allow  to  be  brethren,  or  collateral  branches  of  pride,  are 
certainly  the  issues  of  want.  For,  to  speak  in  the  phrase  of  writers 
upon  politics,  we  may  observe  in  the  republic  of  dogs,  which  in  its 
original  seems  to  be  an  institution  of  the  many,  that  the  whole 
state  is  ever  in  the  profoundest  peace  after  a  full  meal ;  and  that 
civil  broils  arise  among  them  when  it  happens  for  one  great  bone 
to  be  seized  on  by  some  leading  dog,  who  either  divides  it  among 
the  few,  and  then  it  falls  to  an  oligarchy,  or  keeps  it  to  himself, 
and  then  it  runs  up  to  a  tyranny.  .  .  .  Again,  if  we  look  upon  any 
of  these  republics  engaged  in  a  foreign  war,  either  of  invasion  or 
defence,  we  shall  find  the  same  reasoning  will  serve  as  to  the 
grounds  and  occasions  of  each  ;  and  that  poverty  or  want,  in  some 
degree  or  other  (whether  real  or  in  opinion,  which  makes  no  alter- 
ation in  the  case),  has  a  great  share,  as  well  as  pride,  on  the  part 
of  the  aggressor. 

Now,  whoever  will  please  to  take  this  scheme,  and  either  reduce 
or  adapt  it  to  an  intellectual  state  or  commonwealth  of  learning, 
will  soon  discover  the  first  ground  of  disagreement  between  the 
two  great  parties  at  this  time  in  arms,  and  may  form  just  conclu- 
sions upon  the  merits  of  either  cause.  But  the  issue  or  events  of 
this  war  are  not  so  easy  to  conjecture  at ;  for  the  present  quarrel 
is  so  inflamed  by  the  warm  heads  of  either  faction,  and  the  preten- 


274  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

sions  somewhere  or  other  so  exorbitant,  as  not  to  admit  the  least 
overtures  of  accommodation.  This  quarrel  first  began,  as  I  have 
heard  it  affirmed  by  an  old  dweller  in  the  neighbourhood,  about  a 
small  spot  of  ground,  lying  and  being  upon  one  of  the  two  tops  of 
the  hill  Parnassus ;  the  highest  and  largest  of  which  had,  it  seems, 
been  time  out  of  mind  in  quiet  possession  of  certain  tenants,  called 
the  Ancients  ;  and  the  other  was  held  by  the  Moderns.  But  these, 
disliking  their  present  station,  sent  certain  ambassadors  to  the 
Ancients,  complaining  of  a  great  nuisance  ;  how  the  height  of  that 
part  of  Parnassus  quite  spoiled  the  prospect  of  theirs,  especially 
towards  the  East ;  and  therefore,  to  avoid  a  war,  offered  them  the 
choice  of  this  alternative,  either  that  the  Ancients  would  please  to 
remove  themselves  and  their  effects  down  to  the  lower  summit, 
which  the  Moderns  would  graciously  surrender  to  them,  and 
advance  into  their  place ;  or  else  the  said  Ancients  will  give  leave 
to  the  Moderns  to  come  with  shovels  and  mattocks,  and  level  the 
said  hill  as  low  as  they  shall  think  it  convenient.  To  which  the 
Ancients  made  answer,  how  little  they  expected  such  a  message  as 
this  from  a  colony  whom  they  had  admitted,  out  of  their  own  free 
grace,  to  so  near  a  neighbourhood.  That,  as  to  their  own  seat, 
they  were  aborigines  of  it,  and  therefore  to  talk  with  them  of  a 
removal  or  surrender  was  a  language  they  did  not  understand. 
That,  if  the  height  of  the  hill  on  their  side  shortened  the  prospect 
of  the  Moderns,  it  was  a  disadvantage  they  could  not  help ;  but 
dasired  them  to  consider  whether  that  injury  (if  it  be  any)  were 
not  largely  recompensed  by  the  shade  and  shelter  it  afforded  them. 
That,  as  to  the  levelling  or  digging  down,  it  was  either  folly  or 
ignorance  to  propose  it,  if  they  did  or  did  not  know  how  that  side 
of  the  hill  was  an  entire  rock,  which  would  break  their  tools  and 
hearts,  without  any  damage  to  itself.  That  they  would  therefore 
advise  the  Moderns  rather  to  raise  their  own  side  of  the  hill  than 
dream  of  pulling  down  that  of  the  Ancients;  to  the  former  of 
which  they  would  not  only  give  license,  but  also  largely  contribute. 
All  this  was  rejected  by  the  Moderns  with  much  indignation,  who 
still  insisted  upon  one  of  the  two  expedients ;  and  so  this  differ- 


THE  BATTLE    OF   THE  BOOKS.  275 

ence  broke  out  into  a  long  and  obstinate  war,  maintained  on  the 
one  part  by  resolution,  and  by  the  courage  of  certain  leaders  and 
allies ;  but,  on  the  other,  by  the  greatness  of  their  number,  upon 
all  defeats  affording  continual  recruits.  In  this  quarrel  whole  rivu- 
lets of  ink  have  been  exhausted,  and  the  virulence  of  both  parties 
enormously  augmented.  Now,  it  must  be  here  understood,  that 
ink  is  the  great  missive  weapon  in  all  battles  of  the  learned,  which, 
conveyed  through  a  sort  of  engine  called  a  quill,  infinite  numbers 
of  these  are  darted  at  the  enemy  by  the  valiant  on  each  side,  with 
equal  skill  and  violence,  as  if  it  were  an  engagement  of  porcupines. 
This  malignant  liquor  was  compounded,  by  the  engineer  who  in- 
vented it,  of  two  ingredients  which  are  gall  and  copperas ;  by  its 
bitterness  and  venom  to  suit,  in  some  degree,  as  well  as  to  foment, 
the  genius  of  the  combatants.  And  as  the  Grecians,  after  an 
engagement,  when  they  could  not  agree  about  the  victory,  were 
wont  to  set  up  trophies  on  both  sides,  the  beaten  party  being 
content  to  be  at  the  same  expense,  to  keep  itself  in  countenance 
(a  laudable  and  ancient  custom,  happily  revived  of  late  in  the  art 
of  war),  so  the  learned,  after  a  sharp  and  bloody  dispute,  do,  on 
both  sides,  hang  out  their  trophies  too,  whichever  comes  by  the 
worst.  These  trophies  have  largely  inscribed  on  them  the  merits 
of  the  cause ;  a  full  impartial  account  of  such  a  Battle,  and  how 
the  victory  fell  clearly  to  the  party  that  set  them  up.  They  are 
known  to  the  world  under  several  names ;  as  disputes,  arguments, 
rejoinders,  brief  considerations,  answers,  replies,  remarks,  reflec- 
tions, objections,  confutations.  For  a  very  few  days  they  are  fixed 
up  in  all  public  places,  either  by  themselves  or  their  representatives, 
for  passengers  to  gaze  at ;  whence  the  chiefest  and  largest  are 
removed  to  certain  magazines  they  call  libraries,  there  to  remain 
in  a  quarter  purposely  assigned  them,  and  thenceforth  begin  to  be 
called  books  of  controversy. 

In  these  books  is  wonderfully  instilled  and  preserved  the  spirit 
of  each  warrior  while  he  is  alive ;  and  after  his  death  his  soul 
transmigrates  thither  to  inform  them.  This,  at  least,  is  the  more 
common  opinion ;  but  I  believe  it  is  with  libraries  as  with  other 


276  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

cemeteries,  where  some  philosophers  affirm  that  a  certain  spirit, 
which  they  call  brutum  hominis, J  hovers  over  the  monument,  till 
the  body  is  corrupted  and  turns  to  dust  or  to  worms,  but  then 
vanishes  or  dissolves ;  so  we  may  say  a  restless  spirit  haunts 
over  every  book,  till  dust  or  worms  have  seized  upon  it  —  which 
to  some  may  happen  in  a  few  days,  but  to  others  later — and 
therefore,  books  of  controversy  being,  of  all  others,  haunted  by  the 
most  disorderly  spirits,  have  always  been  confined  in  a  separate 
lodge  from  the  rest,  and  for  fear  of  a  mutual  violence  against  each 
other,  it  was  thought  prudent  by  our  ancestors  to  bind  them  to  the 
peace  with  strong  iron  chains.  Of  which  invention  the  original 
occasion  was  this  :  When  the  works  of  Scotus  first  came  out,  they 
were  carried  to  a  certain  library,  and  had  lodgings  appointed 
them ;  but  this  author  was  no  sooner  settled  than  he  went  to  visit 
his  master  Aristotle,  and  there  both  concerted  together  to  seize 
Plato  by  main  force,  and  turn  him  out  from  his  ancient  station 
among  the  divines,  where  he  had  peaceably  dwelt  near  eight  hun- 
dred years.  The  attempt  succeeded,  and  the  two  usurpers  have 
reigned  ever  since  in  his  stead  ;  but,  to  maintain  quiet  for  the 
future,  it  was  decreed  that  all  polemics  of  the  larger  size  should  be 
held  fast  with  a  chain. 

By  this  expedient,  the  public  peace  of  libraries  might  certainly 
have  been  preserved  if  a  new  species  of  controversial  books  had 
not  arose  of  late  years,  instinct  with  a  more  malignant  spirit,  from 
the  war  above  mentioned  between  the  learned  about  the  higher 
summit  of  Parnassus. 

When  these  books  were  first  admitted  into  the  public  libraries, 
I  remember  to  have  said,  upon  occasion,  to  several  persons  con- 
cerned, how  I  was  sure  they  would  create  broils  wherever  they 
came,  unless  a  world  of  care  were  taken  ;  and  therefore  I  advised 
that  the  champions  of  each  side  should  be  coupled  together,  or 
otherwise  mixed,  that,  like  the  blending  of  contrary  poisons,  their 
malignity  might  be  employed  among  themselves.  And  it  seems  I 
was  neither  an  ill  prophet  nor  an  ill  counsellor ;  for  it  was  nothing 
1  the  irrational  part  of  man. 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  277 

else  but  the  neglect  of  this  caution  which  gave  occasion  to  the 
terrible  fight  that  happened  on  Friday  last  between  the  Ancient 
and  Modern  Books  in  the  King's  Library.  Now,  because  the  talk 
of  this  battle  is  so  fresh  in  everybody's  mouth,  and  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  town  so  great  to  be  informed  in  the  particulars,  I, 
being  possessed  of  all  qualifications  requisite  in  an  historian,  and 
retained  by  neither  party,  have  resolved  to  comply  with  the  urgent 
importunity  of  my  friends,  by  writing  down  a  full  impartial 
account  thereof. 

The  guardian  of  the  Regal  Library,2  a  person  of  great  valour,  but 
chiefly  renowned  for  his  humanity,  had  been  a  fierce  champion 
for  the  Moderns,  and,  in  an  engagement  upon  Parnassus,  had 
vowed  with  his  own  hands  to  knock  down  two  of  the  ancient 
chiefs  3  who  guarded  a  small  pass  on  the  superior  rock,  but,  en- 
deavouring to  climb  up,  was  cruelly  obstructed  by  his  own  unhappy 
weight  and  tendency  towards  his  centre,  a  quality  to  which  those 
of  the  Modern  party  are  extremely  subject ;  for,  being  light- 
headed, they  have,  in  speculation,  a  wonderful  agility,  and  con- 
ceive nothing  too  high  for  them  to  mount,  but,  in  reducing  to 
practice,  discover  a  mighty  pressure  about  their  posteriors  and 
their  heels.  Having  thus  failed  in  his  design,  the  disappointed 
champion  bore  a  cruel  rancour  to  the  Ancients,  which  he  resolved 
to  gratify  by  showing  all  marks  of  his  favour  to  the  books  of  their 
adversaries,  and  lodging  them  in  the  fairest  apartments ;  when,  at 
the  same  time,  whatever  book  had  the  boldness  to  own  itself  for 
an  advocate  of  the  Ancients  was  buried  alive  in  some  obscure  cor- 
ner, and  threatened,  upon  the  least  displeasure,  to  be  turned  out 
of  doors.  Besides,  it  so  happened  that  about  this  time  there  was 
a  strange  confusion  of  place  among  all  the  books  in  the  library, 

2  Richard  Bentley,  the  noted  classical  scholar  and  critic,  author  of  the 
"  Dissertation  on  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris."  Boyle,  who  edited  "  The  Epistles 
of  Phalaris,"  charged  that  Bentley,  "  of  his  very  great  humanity,"  refused  him 
the  use  of  a  manuscript  of  these  Epistles.  (See  Bentley's  Life,  by  Professor 
JEBB,  in  "  English  Men  of  Letters.") 

8  Phalaris  and  y£sop. 


278  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

for  which  several  reasons  were  assigned.  Some  imputed  it  to  a 
great  heap  of  learned  dust,  which  a  perverse  wind  blew  off  from 
a  shelf  of  Moderns  into  the  keeper's  eyes.  Others  affirmed  he 
had  a'  humour  to  pick  the  worms  out  of  the  schoolmen,  and  swal- 
low them  fresh  and  fasting,  whereof  some  fell  upon  his  spleen,  and 
some  climbed  up  into  his  head,  to  the  great  perturbation  of  both. 
And  lastly,  others  maintained  that,  by  walking  much  in  the  dark 
about  the  library,  he  had  quite  lost  the  situation  of  it  out  of  his 
head ;  and  therefore,  in  replacing  his  books,  he  was  apt  to  mistake 
and  clap  Descartes  next  to  Aristotle,  poor  Plato  had  got  between 
Hobbes  and  the  Seven  Wise  Masters,  and  Virgil  was  hemmed  in 
with  Dryden  on  one  side  and  Wither  on  the  other. 

Meanwhile,  those  books  that  were  advocates  for  the  Moderns, 
chose  out  one  from  among  them  to  make  a  progress  through  the 
whole  library,  examine  the  number  and  strength  of  their  party, 
and  concert  their  affairs.  This  messenger  performed  all  things 
very  industriously,  and  brought  back  with  him  a  list  of  their 
forces,  in  all  fifty  thousand,  consisting  chiefly  of  light-horse, 
heavy-armed  foot,  and  mercenaries ;  whereof  the  foot  were  in 
general  but  sorrily  armed  and  worse  clad ;  their  horses  large,  but 
extremely  out  of  case  and  heart ;  however,  some  few,  by  trading 
among  the  Ancients,  had  furnished  themselves  tolerably  enough. 

While  things  were  in  this  ferment,  discord  grew  extremely 
high ;  hot  words  passed  on  both  sides,  and  ill  blood  was  plenti- 
fully bred.  Here  a  solitary  Ancient,  squeezed  up  among  a  whole 
shelf  of  Moderns,  offered  fairly  to  dispute  the  case,  and  to  prove 
by  manifest  reason  that  the  priority  was  due  to  them  from  long 
possession,  and  in  regard  of  their  prudence,  antiquity,  and,  above 
all,  their  great  merits  toward  the  Moderns.  But  these  denied  the 
premises,  and  seemed  very  much  to  wonder  how  the  Ancients 
could  pretend  to  insist  upon  their  antiquity,  when  it  was  so  plain 
(if  they  went  to  that)  that  the  Moderns  were  much  the  more 
ancient  of  the  two.  As  for  any  obligations  they  owed  to  the 
Ancients,  they  renounced  them  all.  "It  is  true,"  said  they,  "we 
are  informed  some  few  of  our  party  have  been  so  mean  as  to  bor- 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  279 

row  their  subsistence  from  you,  but  the  rest,  infinitely  the  greater 
number  (and  especially  we  French  and  English),  were  so  far  from 
stooping  to  so  base  an  example,  that  there  never  passed,  till  this 
very  hour,  six  words  between  us.  For  our  horses  were  of  our  own 
breeding,  our  arms  of  our  own  forging,  and  our  clothes  of  our  own 
cutting  out  and  sewing."  Plato  was  by  chance  up  on  the  next 
shelf,  and  observing  those  that  spoke  to  be  in  the  ragged  plight 
mentioned  a  while  ago,  their  jades  lean  and  foundered,  their 
weapons  of  rotten  wood,  their  armour  rusty,  and  nothing  but  rags 
underneath,  he  laughed  loud,  and  in  his  pleasant  way  swore,  By 
,  he  believed  them. 

Now,  the  Moderns  had  not  proceeded  in  their  late  negociation 
with  secrecy  enough  to  escape  the  notice  of  the  enemy.  For 
those  advocates  who  had  begun  the  quarrel,  by  setting  first  on  foot 
the  dispute  of  precedency,  talked  so  loud  of  coming  to  a  battle, 
that  Sir  William  Temple  happened  to  overhear  them,  and  gave 
immediate  intelligence  to  the  Ancients,  who  thereupon  drew  up 
their  scattered  troops  together,  resolving  to  act  upon  the  defen- 
sive ;  upon  which,  several  of  the  Moderns  fled  over  to  their  party, 
and  among  the  rest  Temple  himself.  This  Temple,  having  been 
educated  and  long  conversed  among  the  Ancients,  was,  of  all 
the  Moderns,  their  greatest  favourite,  and  became  their  greatest 
champion. 

Things  were  at  this  crisis  when  a  material  accident  fell  out. 
For,  upon  the  highest  corner  of  a  large  window,  there  dwelt  a 
certain  spider,  swollen  up  to  the  first  magnitude  by  the  destruction 
of  infinite  numbers  of  flies,  whose  spoils  lay  scattered  before  the 
gates  of  his  palace,  like  human  bones  before  the  cave  of  some 
giant.  The  avenues  to  his  castle  were  guarded  with  turnpikes4 
and  palisadoes,  all  after  the  modern  way  of  fortification.  After 
you  had  passed  several  courts  you  came  to  the  centre,  wherein 
you  might  behold  the  constable  himself  in  his  own  lodgings,  which 
had  windows  fronting  to  each  avenue,  and  ports  to  sally  out  upon 
all  occasions  of  prey  or  defence.  In  this  mansion  he  had  for 

4  "Pikes  to  turn  back  assailants."  —  NARES. 


280  "JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

some  time  dwelt  in  peace  and  plenty,  without  danger  to  his  per- 
son by  swallows  from  above,  or  to  his  palace  by  brooms  from 
below ;  when  it  was  the  pleasure  of  fortune  to  conduct  thither  a 
wandering  bee,  to  whose  curiosity  a  broken  pane  in  the  glass  had 
discovered  itself,  and  in  he  went,  where,  expatiating  a  while,  he 
at  last  happened  to  alight  upon  one  of  the  outward  walls  of  the 
spider's  citadel ;  which,  yielding  to  the  unequal  weight,  sunk  down 
to  the  very  foundation.  Thrice  he  endeavoured  to  force  his  pas- 
sage, and  thrice  the  centre  shook.  The  spider  within,  feeling  the 
terrible  convulsion,  supposed  at  first  that  nature  was  approaching 
to  her  final  dissolution,  or  else  that  Beelzebub,  with  all  his  legions, 
was  come  to  revenge  the  death  of  many  thousands  of  his  subjects 
whom  his  enemy  had  slain  £nd  devoured.  However,  he  at  length 
valiantly  resolved  to  issue  forth  and  meet  his  fate.  Meanwhile 
the  bee  had  acquitted  himself  of  his  toils,  and,  posted  securely  at 
some  distance,  was  employed  in  cleansing  his  wings,  and  disengag- 
ing them  from  the  ragged  remnants  of  the  cobweb.  By  this  time 
the  spider  was  adventured  out,  when,  beholding  the  chasms,  the 
ruins,  and  dilapidations  of  his  fortress,  he  was  very  near  at  his  wit's 
end ;  he  stormed  and  swore  like  a  madman,  and  swelled  till  he 
was  ready  to  burst.  At  length,  casting  his  eye  upon  the  bee,  and 
wisely  gathering  causes  from  events  (for  they  knew  each  other  by 
sight),  "  A  plague  split  you,"  said  he ;  ..."  is  it  you,  with  a  ven- 
geance, that  have  made  this  litter  here ;  could  not  you  look  before 

you,  and  be ?     Do  you  think  I  have  nothing  else  to  do  (in 

the  devil's  name)  but  to  mend  and  repair  after  [you]  ?  "  "  Good 
words,  friend,"  said  the  bee,  (having  now  pruned5  himself,  and 
being  disposed  to  droll)  ;  "  I'll  give  you  my  hand  and  word  to 
come  near  your  kennel  no  more ;  I  was  never  in  such  a  con- 
founded pickle  since  I  was  born."  "  Sirrah,"  replied  the  spider, 
"  if  it  were  not  for  breaking  an  old  custom  in  our  family,  never  to 
stir  abroad  against  an  enemy,  I  should  come  and  teach  you  better 
manners."  "I  pray  have  patience,"  said  the  bee,  "or  you'll 
spend  your  substance,  and,  for  aught  I  see,  you  may  stand  in  need 

5  trimmed  himself,  removed  the  cobwebs. 


THE  BATTLE   OF  THE  BOOKS.  281 

of  it  all,  towards  the  repair  of  your  house."  "  Rogue,  rogue,"  re- 
plied the  spider,  "  yet  methinks  you  should  have  more  respect  to 
a  person  whom  all  the  world  allows  to  be  so  much  your  betters." 
"By  my  troth,"  said  the  bee,  "the  comparison  will  amount  to  a 
very  good  jest,  and  you  will  do  me  a  favour  to  let  me  know  the 
reasons  that  all  the  world  is  pleased  to  use  in  so  hopeful  a  dispute." 
At  this  the  spider,  having  swelled  himself  into  the  size  and  posture 
of  a  disputant,  began  his  argument  in  the  true  spirit  of  contro- 
versy, with  resolution  to  be  hea'rtily  scurrilous  and  angry,  to  urge 
on  his  own  reasons  without  the  least  regard  to  the  answers  or 
objections  of  his  opposite,  and  fully  predetermined  in  his  mind 
against  all  conviction. 

"  Not  to  disparage  myself,"  said  he,  "  by  the  comparison  with 
such  a  rascal,  what  art  thou  but  a  vagabond  without  house  or 
home,  without  stock  or  inheritance  ?  born  to  no  possession  of 
your  own,  but  a  pair  of  wings  and  a  drone-pipe.  Your  livelihood 
is  a  universal  plunder  upon  nature ;  a  freebooter  over  fields  and 
gardens ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  stealing,  will  rob  a  nettle  as  easily 
as  a  violet.  Whereas  I  am  a  domestic  animal,  furnished  with  a 
native  stock  within  myself.  This  large  castle  (to  show  my  im- 
provements in  the  mathematics)  is  all  built  with  my  own  hands, 
and  the  materials  extracted  altogether  out  of  my  own  person." 

"  I  am  glad,"  answered  the  bee,  "  to  hear  you  grant  at  least 
that  I  am  come  honestly  by  my  wings  and  my  voice ;  for  then, 
it  seems,  I  am  obliged  to  Heaven  alone  for  my  flights  and  my 
music  ;  and  Providence  would  never  have  bestowed  on  me  two 
such  gifts  without  designing  them  for  the  noblest  ends.  I  visit, 
indeed,  all  the  flowers  and  blossoms  of  the  field  and  garden,  but 
whatever  I  collect  thence  enriches  myself  without  the  least  injury 
to  their  beauty,  their  smell,  or  their  taste.  Now,  for  you  and  your 
skill  in  architecture  and  other  mathematics,  I  have  little  to  say  :  in 
that  building  of  yours  there  might,  for  aught  I  know,  have  been 
labour  and  method  enough;  but,  by  woeful  experience  for  us 
both,  it  is  too  plain  the  materials  are  naught ;  and  I  hope  you 
will  henceforth  take  warning,  and  consider  duration  and  matter,  as 


282  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

well  as  method  and  art.  You  boast,  indeed,  of  being  obliged  to 
no  other  creature,  but  of  drawing  and  spinning  out  all  from  your- 
self; that  is  to  say,  if  we  may  judge  of  the  liquor  in  the  vessel  by 
what  issues  out,  you  possess  a  good  plentiful  store  of  dirt  and 
poison  in  your  breast ;  and,  though  I  would  by  no  means  lessen 
or  disparage  your  genuine  stock  of  either,  yet  I  doubt  you  are 
somewhat  obliged,  for  an  increase  of  both,  to  a  little  foreign  as- 
sistance. Your  inherent  portion  of  dirt  does  not  fail  of  acquisi- 
tions, by  sweepings  exhaled  from  'below ;  and  one  insect  furnishes 
you  with  a  share  of  poison  to  destroy  another.  So  that,  in  short, 
the  question  comes  all  to  this  :  whether6  is  the  nobler  being  of 
the  two,  that  which,  by  a  lazy  contemplation  of  four  inches  round, 
by  an  overweening  pride,  feeding  and  engendering  on  itself,  turns 
all  into  excrement  and  venom,  producing  nothing  at  all  but  fly- 
bane  and  a  cobweb;  or  that  which,  by  a  universal  range,  with 
long  search,  much  study,  true  judgment,  and  distinction  of  things, 
brings  home  honey  and  wax." 

This  dispute  was  managed  with  such  eagerness,  clamour,  and 
warmth,  that  the  two  parties  of  books,  in  arms  below,  stood  silent 
a  while,  waiting  in  suspense  what  would  be  the  issue ;  which  was 
not  long  undetermined  :  for  the  bee,  grown  impatient  at  so  much 
loss  of  time,  fled  straight  away  to  a  bed  of  roses,  without  looking 
for  a  reply,  and  left  the  spider,  like  an  orator,  collected  in  him- 
self, and  just  prepared  to  burst  out. 

It  happened  upon  this  emergency  that  JEsop  broke  silence 
first.  He  had  been  of  late  most  barbarously  treated  by  a  strange 
effect  of  the  Regent's  humanity,  who  had  torn  off  his  title-page, 
sorely  defaced  one  half  of  his  leaves,  and  chained  him  fast  among 
a  shelf  of  Moderns.  Where,  soon  discovering  how  high  the  quar- 
rel was  likely  to  proceed,  he  tried  all  his  arts,  and  turned  himself 
to  a  thousand  forms.  At  length,  in  the  borrowed  shape  of  an 
ass,  the  Regent  mistook  him  for  a  Modern ;  by  which  means  he 
had  time  and  opportunity  to  escape  to  the  Ancients,  just  when 
the  spider  and  the  bee  were  entering  into  their  contest ;  to  which 

6  Late  use  of  the  old  pronoun  =  which  of  the  two. 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  283 

he  gave  his  attention  with  a  world  of  pleasure,  and,  when  it  was 
ended,  swore  in  the  loudest  key  that  in  all  his  life  he  had  never 
known  two  cases  so  parallel  and  adapt  to  each  other  as  that  in 
the  window  and  this  upon  the  shelves.  "The  disputants,"  said 
he,  "  have  admirably  managed  the  dispute  between  them,  have 
taken  in  the  full  strength  of  all  that  is  to  be  said  on  both  sides, 
exhausted  the  substance  of  every  argument  pro  and  con.  It  is 
but  to  adjust  the  reasonings  of  both  to  the  present  quarrel,  then 
to  compare  and  apply  the  labours  and  fruits  of  each,  as  the  bee 
has  learnedly  deduced  them,  and  we  shall  find  the  conclusion  fall 
plain  and  close  upon  the  Moderns  and  us.  For  pray,  gentlemen, 
was  ever  anything  so  modern  as  the  spider  in  his  air,  his  turns, 
and  his  paradoxes  ?  he  argues  in  the  behalf  of  you,  his  brethren, 
and  himself,  with  many  boastings  of  his  native  stock  and  great 
genius ;  that  he  spins  and  spits  wholly  from  himself,  and  scorns 
to  own  any  obligation  or  assistance  from  without.  Then  he  dis- 
plays to  you  his  great  skill  in  architecture  and  improvement  in 
the  mathematics.  To  all  this  the  bee,  as  an  advocate  retained  by 
us,  the  Ancients,  thinks  fit  to  answer,  that,  if  one  may  judge  of 
the  great  genius  or  inventions  of  the  Moderns  by  what  they  have 
produced,  you  will  hardly  have  countenance  to  bear  you  out  in 
boasting  of  either.  Erect  your  schemes  with  as  much  method 
and  skill  as  you  please ;  yet,  if  the  materials  be  nothing  but  dirt, 
spun  out  of  your  own  entrails  (the  guts  of  modern  brains),  the 
edifice  will  conclude  at  last  in  a  cobweb ;  the  duration  of  which, 
like  that  of  other  spiders'  webs,  may  be  imputed  to  their  being 
forgotten,  or  neglected,  or  hid  in  a  corner.  For  anything  else  of 
genuine  that  the  Moderns  may  pretend  to,  I  cannot  recollect ; 
unless  it  be  a  large  vein  of  wrangling  and  satire,  much  of  a  nature 
and  substance  with  the  spiders'  poison ;  which,  however  they 
pretend  to  spit  wholly  out  of  themselves,  is  improved  by  the  same 
arts,  by  feeding  upon  the  insects  and  vermin  of  the  age.  As  for 
us,  the  Ancients,  we  are  content  with  the  bee,  to  pretend  to  noth- 
ing of  our  own  beyond  our  wings  and  our  voice  :  that  is  to  say, 
our  flights  and  our  language.  For  the  rest,  whatever  we  have  got 


284  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

has  been  by  infinite  labour  and  search,  and  ranging  through  every 
corner  of  nature ;  the  difference  is,  that,  instead  of  dirt  and 
poison,  we  have  rather  chosen  to  fill  our  hives  with  honey  and 
wax ;  thus  furnishing  mankind  with  the  two  noblest  of  things, 
which  are  sweetness  and  light." 7 

It  is  wonderful  to  conceive  the  tumult  arisen  among  the  books 
upon  the  close  of  this  long  descant  of  y£sop  :  both  parties  took  the 
hint,  and  heightened  their  animosities  so  on  a  sudden,  that  they 
resolved  it  should  come  to  a  battle.  Immediately  the  two  main 
bodies  withdrew,  under  their  several  ensigns,  to  the  farther  parts 
of  the  library,  and  there  entered  into  cabals  and  consults  upon  the 
present  emergency.  The  Moderns  were  in  very  warm  debates 
upon  the  choice  of  their  leaders ;  and  nothing  less  than  the  fear 
impending  from  their  enemies  could  have  kept  them  from  mutinies 
upon  this  occasion.  The  difference  was  greatest  among  the  horse, 
where  every  private  trooper  pretended  to  the  chief  command,  from 
Tasso  and  Milton  to  Dryden  and  Wither.  The  light-horse  were 
commanded  by  Cowley  and  Despreaux.8  There  came  the  bowmen 
under  their  valiant  leaders,  Descartes,  Gassendi,  and  Hobbes ; 
whose  strength  was  such  that  they  could  shoot  their  arrows  beyond 
the  atmosphere,  never  to  fall  down  again,  but  turn,  like  that  of 
Evander,  into  meteors ;  or,  like  the  cannon  ball,  into  stars.  Para- 
celsus brought  a  squadron  .  .  .  from  the  snowy  mountains  of 
Rhsetia.  There  came  a  vast  body  of  dragoons,  of  different  na- 
tions, under  the  leading  of  Harvey,9  there  great  aga  :  part  armed 
with  sithes,  the  weapons  of  death ;  part  with  lances  and  long 
knives,  all  steeped  in  poison ;  part  shot  bullets  of  a  most  malig- 
nant nature,  and  used  white  powder,  which  infallibly  killed  without 
report.  There  came  several  bodies  of  heavy-armed  foot,  all  mer- 
cenaries, under  the  ensigns  of  Guicciardini,  Davila,  Polydore 
Virgil,  Buchanan,  Mariana,  Camden,  and  others.  The  engineers 

7  The  original  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  favorite  phrase. 

8  i.e.  Boileau. 

9  Sir  William  Temple  had  taken  exception  to  Harvey's  discovery  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood. 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  285 

were  commanded  by  Regiomontanus  and  Wilkins.  The  rest  was  a 
confused  multitude,  led  by  Scotus,  Aquinas,  and  Bellarmine  ;  of 
mighty  bulk  and  stature,  but  without  either  arms,  courage,  or  disci- 
pline. In  the  last  place  came  infinite  swarms  of  calo ties,™  a  disorderly 
rout  led  by  L' Estrange  ;  rogues  and  raggamuffins,  that  follow  the 
camp  for  nothing  but  the  plunder,  all  without  coats  to  cover  them. 

The  army  of  the  Ancients  was  much  fewer  in  number ;  Homer 
led  the  horse,  and  Pindar  the  light-horse  ;  Euclid  was  chief  en- 
gineer ;  Plato  and  Aristotle  commanded  the  bowmen ;  Herodotus 
and  Livy  the  foot ;  Hippocrates,  the  dragoons ;  the  allies,  led  by 
Vossius  and  Temple,  brought  up  the  rear. 

All  things  violently  tending  to  a  decisive  battle,  Fame,  who  much 
frequented,  and  had  a  large  apartment  formerly  assigned  her  in  the 
Regal  Library,  fled  up  straight  to  Jupiter,  to  whom  she  delivered  a 
faithful  account  of  all  that  passed  between  the  two  parties  below ; 
for  among  the  gods  she  always  tells  truth.  Jove,  in  great  concern, 
convokes  a  council  in  the  Milky  Way.  The  senate  assembled,  he 
declares  the  occasion  of  convening  them  ;  a  bloody  battle  just 
impendent  between  two  mighty  armies  of  ancient  and  modern 
creatures,  called  books,  wherein  the  celestial  interest  was  but  too 
deeply  concerned.  Momus,  the  patron  of  the  Moderns,  made  an 
excellent  speech  in  their  favour,  which  was  answered  by  Pallas,  the 
protectress  of  the  Ancients.  The  assembly  was  divided  in  their 
affections  ;  when  Jupiter  commanded  the  Book  of  Fate  to  be  laid 
before  him.  Immediately  were  brought  by  Mercury  three  large 
volumes  in  folio,  containing  memoirs  of  all  things  past,  present,  and 
to  come.  The  clasps  were  of  silver  double  gilt,  the  covers  of 
celestial  turkey-leather,  and  the  paper  such  as  here  on  earth  might 
pass  almost  for  vellum.  Jupiter,  having  silently  read  the  decree, 
would  communicate  the  import  to  none,  but  presently  shut  up  the 
book. 

Without  the  doors  of  this  assembly  there  attended  a  vast  num- 
ber of  light,  nimble  gods,  menial  servants  to  Jupiter  :  these  are  his 
ministering  instruments  in  all  affairs  below.  They  travel  in  a  cara- 
10  soldiers'  servants,  camp-followers. 


286  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

van,  more  or  less  together,  and  are  fastened  to  each  other  like  a 
link  of  galley-slaves,  by  a  light  chain,  which  passes  from  them  to 
Jupiter's  great  toe  :  and  yet,  in  receiving  or  delivering  a  message, 
they  may  never  approach  above  the  lowest  step  of  his  throne,  where 
he  and  they  whisper  to  each  other  through  a  large  hollow  trunk.11 
These  deities  are  called  by  mortal  men  accidents  or  events ;  but 
the  gods  call  them  second  causes.  Jupiter  having  delivered  his 
message  to  a  certain  number  of  these  divinities,  they  flew  immedi- 
ately down  to  the  pinnacle  of  the  Regal  Library,  and  consulting  a 
few  minutes,  entered  unseen,  and  disposed  the  parties  according  to 
their  orders. 

Meanwhile  Momus,  fearing  the  worst,  and  calling  to  mind  an 
ancient  prophecy  which  bore  no  very  good  face  to  his  children 
the  Moderns,  bent  his  flight  to  the  region  of  a  malignant  deity 
called  Criticism.  She  dwelt  on  the  top  of  a  snowy  mountain  in 
Nova  Zembla ;  there  Momus  found  her  extended  in  her  den,  upon 
the  spoils  of  numberless  volumes,  half  devoured.  At  her  right 
hand  sat  Ignorance,  her  father  and  husband,  blind  with  age ;  at 
her  left,  Pride,  her  mother,  dressing  her  up  in  the  scraps  of  paper 
herself  had  torn.  There  was  Opinion,  her  sister,  light  of  foot, 
hood-winked,  and  headstrong,  yet  giddy,  and  perpetually  turning. 
About  her  played  her  children,  Noise  and  Impudence,  Dulness 
and  Vanity,  Positiveness,  Pedantry  and  Ill-manners.  The  god- 
dess herself  had  claws  like  a  cat ;  her  head,  and  ears,  and  voice 
resembled  those  of  an  ass ;  her  teeth  fallen  out  before,  her  eyes 
turned  inward,  as  if  she  looked  only  upon  herself;  her  diet  was 
the  overflowing  of  her  own  gall ;  her  spleen  was  so  large  as  to 
stand  prominent,  like  a  dug  of  the  first  rate ;  nor  wanted  excres- 
cencies  in  form  of  teats,  a*  which  a  crew  of  ugly  monsters  were 
greedily  suckling ;  and,  what  is  wonderful  to  conceive,  the  bulk 
of  spleen  increased  faster  than  the  sucking  could  diminish  it. 
"  Goddess,"  said  Momus,  "  can  you  sit  idly  here  while  our  devout 
worshippers,  the  Moderns,  are  this  minute  entering  into  a  cruel 
battle,  and  perhaps  now  lying  under  the  swords  of  their  enemies? 

11  tube. 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  287 

who  then  hereafter  will  ever  sacrifice  or  build  altars  to  our  divin- 
ities ?  Haste,  therefore,  to  the  British  Isle,  and,  if  possible,  pre- 
vent their  destruction;  while  I  make  factions  among  the  gods, 
and  gain  them  over  to  our  party." 

Momus,  having  thus  delivered  himself,  stayed  not  for  an  answer, 
but  left  the  goddess  to  her  own  resentment.  Up  she  rose  in  a 
rage,  and,  as  it  is  the  form  on  such  occasions,  began  a  soliloquy : 
"  It  is  I  "  (said  she)  "  who  give  wisdom  to  infants  and  idiots ; 
by  me  children  grow  wiser  than  their  parents,  by  me  beaux 
become  politicians,  and  schoolboys  judges  of  philosophy ;  by  me 
sophisters  debate  and  conclude  upon  the  depths  of  knowledge ; 
and  coffee-house  wits,  instinct  by  me,  can  correct  an  author's 
style,  and  display  his  minutest  errours,  without  understanding  a 
syllable  of  his  matter  or  his  language ;  by  me  striplings  spend 
their  judgment,  as  they  do  their  estate,  before  it  comes  into  their 
hands.  It  is  I  who  have  deposed  wit  and  knowledge  from  their 
empire  over  poetry,  and  advanced  myself  in  their  stead.  And 
shall  a  few  upstart  Ancients  dare  to  oppose  me  ?  —  But  come,  my 
aged  parent,  and  you,  my  children  dear,  and  thou,  my  beauteous 
sister ;  let  us  ascend  my  chariot,  and  haste  to  assist  our  devout 
Moderns,  who  are  now  sacrificing  to  us  a  hecatomb,  as  I  perceive 
by  that  grateful  smell  which  from  thence  reaches  my  nostrils." 

The  goddess  and  her  train,  having  mounted  the  chariot,  which 
was  drawn  by  tame  geese,  flew  over  infinite  regions,  shedding  her 
influence  in  due  places,  till  at  length  she  arrived  at  her  beloved 
island  of  Britain  ;  but  in  hovering  over  its  metropolis,  what  bless- 
ings did  she  not  let  fall  upon  her  seminaries  of  Gresham  and 
Covent-garden !  And  now  she  reached  the  fatal  plain  of  St. 
James's  Library,  at  what  time  the  two  armies  were  upon  the  point 
to  engage ;  where,  entering  with  all  her  caravan  unseen,  and 
landing  upon  a  case  of  shelves,  now  desert,  but  once  inhabited  by 
a  colony  of  virtuosoes,  she  stayed  awhile  to  observe  the  posture  of 
both  armies. 

But  here  the  tender  cares  of  a  mother  began  to  fill  her  thoughts 
and  move  in  her  breast :  for  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  Modern 


288  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

bowmen  she  cast  her  eyes  upon  her  son  Wotton,  to  whom  the 
fates  had  assigned  a  very  short  thread.  Wotton,  a  young  hero, 
whom  an  unknown  father  of  mortal  race  begot  by  stolen  embraces 
with  this  goddess.  He  was  the  darling  of  his  mother  above  all 
her  children,  and  she  resolved  to  go  and  comfort  him.  But  first, 
according  to  the  good  old  custom  of  deities,  she  cast  about  to 
change  her  shape,  for  fear  the  divinity  of  her  countenance  might 
dazzle  his  mortal  sight  and  overcharge  the  rest  of  his  senses. 
She  therefore  gathered  up  her  person  into  an  octavo  compass  : 
her  body  grew  white  and  arid,  and  split  in  pieces  with  dryness ; 
the  thick  turned  into  pasteboard,  and  the  thin  into  paper ;  upon 
which  her  parents  and  children  artfully  strewed  a  black  juice,  or 
decoction  of  gall  and  soot,  in  form  of  letters :  her  head,  and 
voice,  and  spleen,  kept  their  primitive  form ;  and  that  which 
before  was  a  cover  of  skin  did  still  continue  so.  In  this  guise  she 
marched  on  towards  the  Moderns,  undistinguishable  in  shape  and 
dress  from  the  divine  Bentley,  Wotton's  dearest  friend.  "  Brave 
Wotton,"  said  the  goddess,  "  why  do  our  troops  stand  idle  here, 
to  spend  their  present  vigour  and  opportunity  of  the  day?  away, 
let  us  haste  to  the  generals,  and  advise  to  give  the  onset  im- 
mediately." Having  spoke  thus,  she  took  the  ugliest  of  her 
monsters,  full  glutted  from  her  spleen,  and  flung  it  invisibly  into 
his  mouth,  which,  flying  straight  up  into  his  head,  squeezed  out 
his  eye-balls,  gave  him  a  distorted  look,  and  half  overturned  his 
brain.  Then  she  privately  ordered  two  of  her  beloved  children, 
Dulness  and  Ill-manners,  closely  to  attend  his  person  in  all  en- 
counters. Having  thus  accoutred  him,  she  vanished  in  a  mist, 
and  the  hero  perceived  it  was  the  goddess  his  mother. 

The  destined  hour  of  fate  being  now  arrived,  the  fight  began ; 
whereof,  before  I  dare  adventure  to  make  a  particular  description, 
I  must,  after  the  example  of  other  authors,  petition  for  a  hundred 
tongues,  and  mouths,  and  hands,  and  pens,  which  would  all  be 
too  little  to  perform  so  immense  a  work.  Say,  goddess,  that  pre- 
sidest  over  History,  who  it  was  that  first  advanced  in  the  field  of 
battle  !  Paracelsus,  at  the  head  of  his  dragoons,  observing  Galen 


THE  BATTLE    OF  THE  BOOKS.  289 

in  the  adverse  wing,  darted  his  javelin  with  a  mighty  force,  which 
the  brave  Ancient  received  upon  his  shield,  the  point  breaking  in 
the  second  fold.     .....          Hie  pauca 

desunt™ 

They  bore  the  wounded  aga  on  their  shields  to  his  chariot  . 
Desunt       ........ 

nonnulla™  .  ....... 

Then  Aristotle,  observing  Bacon  advance  with  a  furious  mien, 
drew  his  bow  to  the  head,  and  let  fly  his  arrow,  which  missed  the 
valiant  Modern  and  went  whizzing  over  his  head  ;  but  Descartes  it 
hit  ;  the  steel  point  quickly  found  a  defect  in  his  head-piece  ;  it 
pierced  the  leather  and  the  pasteboard,  and  went  in  at  his  right 
eye.  The  torture  of  the  pain  whirled  the  valiant  bowman  round  till 
death,  like  a  star  of  superior  influence,  drew  him  into  his  own  vortex. 
Ingfiis  hiatus  ....... 


when  Homer  appeared  at  the  head  of  the  cavalry, 
mounted  on  a  furious  horse,  with  difficulty  managed  by  the  rider 
himself,  but  which  no  other  mortal  durst  approach  ;  he  rode 
among  the  enemy's  ranks,  and  bore  down  all  before  him.  Say, 
goddess,  whom  he  slew  first  and  whom  he  slew  last  !  First,  Gondi- 
bert15  advanced  against  him,  clad  in  heavy  armour  and  mounted  on 
a  staid  sober  gelding,  not  so  famed  for  his  speed  as  his  docility  in 
kneeling  whenever  his  rider  would  mount  or  alight.  He  had  made 
a  vow  to  Pallas  that  he  would  never  leave  the  field  till  he  had 
spoiled  Homer  of  his  armour  :  madman,  who  had  never  once  seen 
the  wearer,  nor  understood  his  strength  !  Him  Homer  overthrew, 
horse  and  man,  to  the  ground,  there  to  be  trampled  and  choked 
in  the  dirt.  Then  with  a  long  spear  he  slew  Denham,  a  stout 
Modern,  who  from  his  father's  side  derived  his  lineage  from 
Apollo,  but  his  mother  was  of  mortal  race.  He  fell,  and  bit  the 
earth.  The  celestial  part  Apollo  took,  and  made  it  a  star  ;  but  the 
terrestrial  lay  wallowing  upon  the  ground.  Then  Homer  slew 

12  Here  a  little  is  wanting.       u  Here  is  a  great  gap  in  the  MS. 

13  Something  is  -wanting.         15  Sir  William  Davenant,  author  of  "  Gondibert." 


290  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

Sam  Wesley16  with  a  kick  of  his  horse's  heel ;  he  took  Perrault  by 
mighty  force  out  of  his  saddle,  then  hurled  him  at  Fontenelle, 
with  the  same  blow  dashing  out  both  their  brains. 

On  the  left  wing  of  the  horse  Virgil  appeared,  in  shining 
armour,  completely  fitted  to  his  body ;  he  was  mounted  on  a 
dapple-grey  steed,  the  slowness  of  whose  pace  was  an  effect  of  the 
hightest  mettle  and  vigour.  He  cast  his  eye  on  the  adverse  wing, 
with  a  desire  to  find  an  object  worthy  of  his  valour,  when  behold 
upon  a  sorrel  gelding  of  a  monstrous  size  appeared  a  foe  issuing 
from  among  the  thickest  of  the  enemy's  squadrons ;  but  his  speed 
was  less  than  his  noise  ;  for  his  horse,  old  and  lean,  spent  the 
dregs  of  his  strength  in  a  high  trot,  which,  though  it  made  slow 
advances,  yet  caused  a  loud  clashing  of  his  armour,  terrible  to  hear. 
The  two  cavaliers  had  now  approached  within  the  throw  of  a  lance, 
when  the  stranger  desired  a  parley,  and,  lifting  up  the  vizor  of  his 
helmet,  a  face  hardly  appeared  from  within  which,  after  a  pause, 
was  known  for  that  of  the  renowned  Dryden.  The  brave  Ancient 
suddenly  started,  as  one  possessed  with  surprise  and  disappoint- 
ment together;  for  the  helmet  was  nine  times  too  large  for  the 
head,  which  appeared  situate  far  in  the  hinder  part,  even  like  the 
lady  in  a  lobster,  or  like  a  mouse  under  a  canopy  of  state,  or  like 
a  shrivelled  beau  from  within  the  penthouse  of  a  modern  periwig ; 
and  the  voice  was  suited  to  the  visage,  sounding  weak  and  remote. 
Dryden,  in  a  long  harangue,  soothed  up  the  good  Ancient ;  called 
him  Father  and,  by  a  large  deduction  of  genealogies,  made  it 
plainly  appear  that  they  were  nearly  related.  Then  he  humbly 
proposed  an  exchange  of  armour,  as  a  lasting  mark  of  hospitality 
between  them.  Virgil  consented  (for  the  goddess  Diffidence 
came  unseen,  and  cast  a  mist  before  his  eyes),  though  his  was  of 
gold  and  cost  a  hundred  beeves,  the  other's  but  of  rusty  iron. 
However,  this  glittering  armour  became  the  Modern  yet  worse 
than  his  own.  Then  they  agreed  to  exchange  horses  ;  but,  when 

16  Father  of  John  Wesley.  He  was  known  as  a  minor  writer,  but  had 
published  little  at  this  time. 


THE  BATTLE    OF   THE  BOOKS.  291 

it  came   to  the  trial,  Dryden  was  afraid  and  utterly  unable  to 
mount.  ......  Alter  hiatus 

in  MS}7 

Lucan  appeared   upon   a   fiery    horse   of  admirable  shape,    but 
headstrong,  bearing  the  rider  where  he  list  over  the  field ;    he 
made  a  mighty  slaughter  among  the  enemy's  horse ;   which  de- 
struction to  stop,  Blackmore,  a  famous  Modern  (but  one  of  the 
mercenaries),  strenuously  opposed  himself,  and  darted  his  javelin 
with  a  strong  hand,  which,  falling  short  of  its  mark,  struck  deep  in 
the  earth.     Then  Lucan  threw  a  lance ;   but  ^sculapius  came 
unseen  and  turned  off  the  point.     "  Brave  Modern,"  said  Lucan, 
"I  perceive  some  god  protects  you,  for  never  did  my  arm  so 
deceive  me  before  :   but  what  mortal  can  contend  with  a  god  ? 
Therefore,  let  us  fight  no  longer,  but  present  gifts  to  each  other." 
Lucan  then  bestowed  on  the  Modern  a  pair  of  spurs,  and  Black- 
more  gave  Lucan  a  bridle.  ..... 

Pauca  desunt™       .  .  .  .  . 

Creech  :  but  the  goddess  Dulness  took  a  cloud,  formed  into  the 
shape  of  Horace,  armed  and  mounted,  and  placed  in  a  flying 
posture  before  him.  Glad  was  the  cavalier  to  begin  a  combat 
with  a  flying  foe,  and  pursued  the  image,  threatening  aloud ;  till 
at  last  it  led  him  to  the  peaceful  bower  of  his  father,  Ogleby,  by 
whom  he  was  disarmed  and  assigned  to  his  repose. 

Then  Pindar  slew  — ,  and  — ,  and  Oldham,  and  — ,  and  Afra  19 
the  Amazon,  light  of  foot ;  never  advancing  in  a  direct  line,  but 
wheeling  with  incredible  agility  and  force,  he  made  a  terrible 
slaughter  among  the  enemy's  light-horse.  Him  when  Cowley 
observed,  his  generous  heart  burnt  within  him,  and  he  advanced 
against  the  fierce  Ancient,  imitating  his  address,  his  pace,  and 
career,  as  well  as  the  vigour  of  his  horse  and  his  own  skill  would 
allow.  When  the  two  cavaliers  had  approached  within  the  length 
of  three  javelins,  first  Cowley  threw  a  lance,  which  missed  Pindar, 

17  Another  gap  in  the  MS.  18  A  little  is  wanting. 

19  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn,  writer  of  dramas  and  tales. 


292  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

and,  passing  into  the  enemy's  ranks,  fell  ineffectual  to  the  ground. 
Then  Pindar  darted  a  javelin  so  large  and  weighty,  that  scarce  a 
dozen  cavaliers,  as  cavaliers  are  in  our  degenerate  days,  could 
raise  it  from  the  ground ;  yet  he  threw  it  with  ease,  and  it  went, 
by  an  unerring  hand,  singing  through  the  air ;  nor  could  the  Mod- 
ern have  avoided  present  death  if  he  had  not  luckily  opposed  the 
shield  that  had  been  given  him  by  Venus.  And  now  both  heroes 
drew  their  swords  ;  but  the  Modern  was  so  aghast  and  disordered 
that  he  knew  not  where  he  was ;  his  shield  dropped  from  his 
hands  ;  thrice  he  fled,  and  thrice  he  could  not  escape.  At  last  he 
turned,  and  lifting  up  his  hand  in  the  posture  of  a  suppliant, 
"Godlike  Pindar,"  said  he,  "spare  my  life,  and  possess  my  horse, 
with  these  arms,  beside  the  ransom  which  my  friends  will  give 
when  they  hear  I  am  alive  and  your  prisoner."  "  Dog  !  "  said 
Pindar,  "  let  your  ransom  stay  with  your  friends  ;  but  your  carcase 
shall  be  left  for  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  field." 
With  that  he  raised  his  sword,  and,  with  a  mighty  stroke,  cleft  the 
wretched  Modern  in  twain,  the  sword  pursuing  the  blow ;  and  one 
half  lay  panting  on  the  ground,  to  be  trod  in  pieces  by  the  horses' 
feet ;  the  other  half  was  borne  by  the  frightened  steed  through  the 
field.  This  Venus  took,  washed  it  seven  times  in  ambrosia,  then 
struck  it  thrice  with  a  sprig  of  amaranth  ;  upon  which  the  leather 
grew  round  and  soft,  and  the  leaves  turned  into  feathers,  and, 
being  gilded  before,  continued  gilded  still ;  so  it  became  a  dove, 
and  she  harnessed  it  to  her  chariot. 

.     Hiatus  valde  de- 
.    flendusinMS™ 

20  A  gap  in  the  MS.  very  much  to  be  lamented. 


THE  BATTLE   OF  THE  BOOKS.  293 

THE  EPISODE  OF  BENTLEY  AND  WorroN.21 

DAY  being  far  spent,  and  the  numerous  forces  of  the  Moderns 
half  inclining  to  a  retreat,  there  issued  forth,  from  a  squadron  of 
their  heavy-armed  foot,  a  captain  whose  name  was  Bentley,  the 
most  deformed  of  all  the  Moderns ;  tall,  but  without  shape  or 
comeliness ;  large,  but  without  strength  or  proportion.  His 
armour  was  patched  up  of  a  thousand  incoherent  pieces,  and  the 
sound  of  it,  as  he  marched,  was  loud  and  dry,  like  that  made  by 
the  fall  of  a  sheet  of  lead,  which  an  Etesian  wind  blows  suddenly 
down  from  the  roof  of  some  steeple.  His  helmet  was  of  old  rusty 
iron,  but  the  vizor  was  brass,  which,  tainted  by  his  breath,  cor- 
rupted into  copperas,  nor  wanted  gall  from  the  same  fountain,  so 
that,  whenever  provoked  by  anger  or  labour,  an  atramentous 
quality,  of  most  malignant  nature,  was  seen  to  distil  from  his  lips. 
In  his  right  hand  he  grasped  a  flail,  and  (that  he  might  never  be 
unprovided  of  an  offensive  weapon)  a  vessel  full  of  [refuse]  in  his 
left.  Thus  completely  armed,  he  advanced  with  a  slow  and  heavy 
pace  where  the  Modern  chiefs  were  holding  a  consult  upon  the 
sum  of  things,  who,  as  he  came  onwards,  laughed  to  behold  his 
crooked  leg  and  humped  shoulder,  which  his  boot  and  armour, 
vainly  endeavouring  to  hide,  were  forced  to  comply  with  and 
expose.  The  generals  made  use  of  him  for  his  talents  of  railing, 
which,  kept  within  government,  proved  frequently  of  great  service 
to  their  cause,  but,  at  other  times,  did  more  mischief  than  good ; 
for,  at  the  least  touch  of  offence,  and  often  without  any  at  all,  he 
would,  like  a  wounded  elephant,  convert  it  against  his  leaders. 
Such,  at  this  juncture,  was  the  disposition  of  Bentley,  grieved  to  see 
the  enemy  prevail,  and  dissatisfied  with  everybody's  conduct  but 
his  own.  He  humbly  gave  the  Modern  generals  to  understand 
that  he  conceived,  with  great  submission,  they  were  all  a  pack  of 
rogues,  and  fools,  .  .  .  and  confounded  logger-heads,  and  illiterate 

21  William  Wotton,  author  of  "  Reflections  on  Ancient  and  Modern  Learn- 
ing" (1694),  to  the  second  edition  of  which  (1697)  was  appended  the  first 
edition  of  Bentley's  "  Dissertation  on  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris." 


294  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

whelps,  and  nonsensical  scoundrels  :  that,  if  himself  had  been 
constituted  general,  those  presumptuous  dogs,  the  Ancients,  would 
long  before  this  have  been  beaten  out  of  the  field.  "You,"  said 
he,  "  sit  here  idle,  but  when  I,  or  any  other  valiant  Modern  kill  an 
enemy,  you  are  sure  to  seize  the  spoil.  But  I  will  not  march  one 
foot  against  the  foe  till  you  all  swear  to  me  that  whomever  I  take 
or  kill,  his  arms  I  shall  quietly  possess."  Bentley  having  spoken 
thus,  Scaliger,  bestowing  him  a  sour  look,  "  Miscreant  prater  !  " 
said  he, "  eloquent  only  in  thine  own  eyes,  thou  railest  without  wit, 
or  truth,  or  discretion.  The  malignity  of  thy  temper  perverteth 
nature ;  thy  learning  makes  thee  more  barbarous ;  thy  study  of 
humanity  more  inhuman  ;  thy  converse  among  poets  more  grovel- 
ing, miry,  and  dull.  All  arts  of  civilizing  others  render  thee  rude 
and  untractable ;  courts  have  taught  thee  ill  manners,  and  polite 
conversation  has  finished  thee  a  pedant.  Besides,  a  greater  cow- 
ard burdeneth  not  the  army.  But  never  despond ;  I  pass  my 
word,  whatever  spoil  thou  takest  shall  certainly  be  thy  own  ; 
though  I  hope  that  vile  carcase  will  first  become  a  prey  to  kites 
and  worms." 

Bentley  durst  not  reply,  but,  half  choked  with  spleen  and  rage, 
withdrew,  in  full  resolution  of  performing  some  great  achievement. 
With  him,  for  his  aid  and  companion,  he  took  his  beloved  Wotton, 
resolving  by  policy  or  surprise  to  attempt  some  neglected  quarter 
of  the  ancients'  army.  They  began  their  march  over  carcases  of 
their  slaughtered  friends ;  then  to  the  right  of  their  own  forces ; 
then  wheeled  northward,  till  they  came  to  Aldrovandus's  tomb, 
which  they  passed  on  the  side  of  the  declining  sun.  And  now 
they  arrived,  with  fear,  toward  the  enemy's  outguards,  looking 
about,  if  haply  they  might  spy  the  quarters  of  the  wounded,  or 
some  straggling  sleepers,  unarmed  and  remote  from  the  rest.  As 
when  two  mongrel  curs,  whom  native  greediness  and  domestic 
want  provoke  and  join  in  partnership,  though  fearful,  nightly  to 
invade  the  fold  of  some  rich  grazier,  they,  with  tails  depressed  and 
lolling  tongues,  creep  soft  and  slow.  Meanwhile  the  conscious 
moon,  now  in  her  zenith,  on  their  guilty  heads  darts  perpendic- 


THE  BATTLE   OF  THE  BOOKS.  295 

ular  rays;  nor  dare  they  bark,  though  much  provoked  at  her 
refulgent  visage,  whether  seen  in  puddle  by  reflection  or  in  sphere 
direct ;  but  one  surveys  the  region  round,  while  the  other  scouts 
the  plain,  if  haply  to  discover,  at  distance  from  the  flock,  some 
carcase  half  devoured,  the  refuse  of  gorged  wolves  or  ominous 
ravens.  So  marched  this  lovely,  loving  pair  of  friends,  nor  with 
less  fear  and  circumspection,  when  at  a  distance  they  might  per- 
ceive two  shining  suits  of  armour  hanging  upon  an  oak,  and  the 
owners  not  far  off  in  a  profound  sleep.  The  two  friends  drew 
lots,  and  the  pursuing  of  this  adventure  fell  to  Bentley;  on  he 
went,  and  in  his  van  Confusion  and  Amaze,  while  Horrour  and 
Affright  brought  up  the  rear.  As  he  came  near,  behold  two 
heroes  of  the  Ancients'  army,  Phalaris  and  y£sop,  lay  fast  asleep. 
Bentley  would  fain  have  despatched  them  both,  and,  stealing 
close,  aimed  his  flail  at  Phalaris's  breast ;  but  then  the  goddess 
Affright,  interposing,  caught  the  Modern  in  her  icy  arms,  and 
dragged  him  from  the  danger  she  foresaw ;  both  the  dormant 
heroes  happened  to  turn  at  the  same  instant,  though  soundly 
sleeping,  and  busy  in  a  dream.  For  Phalaris  was  just  that  minute 
dreaming  how  a  most  vile  poetaster  had  lampooned  him,  and  how 
he  had  got  him  roaring  in  his  bull.  And  ^Esop  dreamed  that,  as 
he  and  the  Ancient  chiefs  were  lying  on  the  ground,  a  wild  ass 
broke  loose,  ran  about,  trampling  and  kicking  in  their  faces. 
Bentley,  leaving  the  two  heroes  asleep,  seized  on  both  their 
armours,  and  withdrew  in  quest  of  his  darling  Wotton. 

He,  in  the  meantime,  had  wandered  long  in  search  of  some  en- 
terprise, till  at  length  he  arrived  at  a  small  rivulet  that  issued  from 
a  fountain  hard  by,  called,  in  the  language  of  mortal  men,  Heli- 
con. Here  he  stopped,  and,  parched  with  thirst,  resolved  to 
allay  it  in  this  limpid  stream.  Thrice  with  profane  hands  he 
essayed  to  raise  the  water  to  his  lips,  and  thrice  it  slipped  all 
through  his  fingers.  Then  he  stooped  prone  on  his  breast,  but, 
ere  his  mouth  had  kissed  the  liquid  crystal,  Apollo  came,  and  in 
the  channel  held  his  shield  betwixt  the  Modern  and  the  fountain, 
so  that  he  drew  up  nothing  but  mud.  For,  although  no  fountain 


296  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

on  earth  can  compare  with  the  clearness  of  Helicon,  yet  there 
lies  at  bottom  a  thick  sediment  of  slime  and  mud ;  for  so  Apollo 
begged  of  Jupiter,  as  a  punishment  to  those  who  durst  attempt  to 
taste  it  with  unhallowed  lips,  and  for  a  lesson  to  all  not  to  draw 
too  deep  or  far  from  the  spring. 

At  the  fountain-head  Wotton  discerned  two  heroes ;  the  one 
he  could  not  distinguish,  but  the  other  was  soon  known  for 
Temple,  general  of  the  allies  to  the  Ancients.  His  back  was 
turned,  and  he  was  employed  in  drinking  large  draughts  in  his 
helmet  from  the  fountain,  where  he  had  withdrawn  himself  to  rest 
from  the  toils  of  the  war.  Wotton,  observing  him,  with  quaking 
knees  and  trembling  hands,  spoke  thus  to  himself :  "  O  that  I  could 
kill  this  destroyer  of  our  army,  what  renown  should  I  purchase 
among  the  chiefs  !  but  to  issue  out  against  him,  man  against  man, 
shield  against  shield,  and  lance  against  lance,  what  Modern  of  us 
dare?  for  he  fights  like  a  god,  and  Pallas  or  Apollo  are  ever  at 
his  elbow.  But,  O  mother  !  if  what  Fame  reports  be  true,  that  I 
am  the  son  of  so  great  a  goddess,  grant  me  to  hit  Temple  with 
this  lance,  that  the  stroke  may  send  him  to  Hell,  and  that  I  may 
return  in  safety  and  triumph,  laden  with  his  spoils."  The  first  part 
of  this  prayer  the  gods  granted  at  the  intercession  of  his  mother 
and  of  Momus ;  but  the  rest,  by  a  perverse  wind  sent  from  Fate, 
was  scattered  in  the  air.  Then  Wotton  grasped  his  lance,  and, 
brandishing  it  thrice  over  his  head,  darted  it  with  all  his  might, 
the  goddess,  his  mother,  at  the  same  time  adding  strength  to  his 
arm.  Away  the  lance  went  hizzing,  and  reached  even  to  the  belt 
of  the  averted  Ancient,  upon  which,  lightly  grazing,  it  fell  to  the 
ground.  Temple  neither  felt  the  weapon  touch  him  nor  heard  it 
fall ;  and  Wotton  might  have  escaped  to  his  army,  with  the  honour 
of  having  remitted  his  lance  against  so  great  a  leader  unrevenged ; 
but  Apollo,  enraged  that  a  javelin  flung  by  the  assistance  of  so 
foul  a  goddess  should  pollute  his  fountain,  put  on  the  shape  of 
,  and  softly  came  to  young  Boyle,22  who  then  accompanied 

22  Charles  Boyle,  editor  of  the  so-called  "Epistles  of  Phalaris"  (1695), 
which  gave  rise  to  the  Boyle  and  Bentley  Controversy.  (See  JEBB'S  "  Life  of 
Bentley,"  Chaps.  V.,  VI.) 


THE  BATTLE   Of  THE  BOOKS.  297 

Temple :  he  pointed  first  to  the  lance,  then  to  the  distant 
Modern  that  flung  it,  and  commanded  the  young  hero  to  take 
immediate  revenge.  Boyle,  clad  in  a  suit  of  armour,  which  had 
been  given  him  by  all  the  gods,  immediately  advanced  against  the 
trembling  foe,  who  now  fled  before  him.  As  a  young  lion  in  the 
Libyan  plains,  or  Araby  desert,  sent  by  his  aged  sire  to  hunt  for 
prey,  or  health,  or  exercise,  he  scours  along,  wishing  to  meet 
some  tiger  from  the  mountains,  or  a  furious  boar ;  if  chance  a  wild 
ass,  with  brayings  importune,  affronts  his  ear,  the  generous  beast, 
though  loathing  to  distain  his  claws  with  blood  so  vile,  yet,  much 
provoked  at  the  offensive  noise,  which  Echo,  foolish  nymph,  like 
her  ill-judging  sex,  repeats  much  louder,  and  with  more  delight 
than  Philomela's  song,  he  vindicates  the  honour  of  the  forest,  and 
hunts  the  noisy  long-eared  animal.  So  Wotton  fled,  so  Boyle 
pursued.  But  Wotton,  heavy-armed,  and  slow  of  foot,  began  to 
slack  his  course,  when  his  lover  Bentley  appeared,  returning  laden 
with  the  spoils  of  the  two  sleeping  Ancients.  Boyle  observed  him 
well,  and  soon  discovering  the  helmet  and  shield  of  Phalaris  his 
friend,  both  which  he  had  lately  with  his  own  hands  new  polished 
and  gilt,  rage  sparkled  in  his  eyes,  and,  leaving  his  pursuit  after 
Wotton,  he  furiously  rushed  on  against  this  new  approacher. 
Fain  would  he  be  revenged  on  both ;  but  both  now  fled  different 
ways  :  and,  as  a  woman  in  a  little  house  that  gets  a  painful  liveli- 
hood by  spinning,  if  chance  her  geese  be  scattered  o'er  the  com- 
mon, she  courses  round  the  plain  from  side  to  side,  compelling 
here  and  there  the  stragglers  to  the  flock ;  they  cackle  loud,  and 
flutter  o'er  the  champaign ;  so  Boyle  pursued,  so  fled  this  pair  of 
friends  :  finding  at  length  their  flight  was  vain,  they  bravely  joined, 
and  drew  themselves  in  phalanx.  First  Bentley  threw  a  spear 
with  all  his  force,  hoping  to  pierce  the  enemy's  breast ;  but  Pallas 
came  unseen,  and  in  the  air  took  off  the  point,  and  clapped  on 
one  of  lead,  which,  after  a  dead  bang  against  the  enemy's  shield, 
fell  blunted  to  the  ground.  Then  Boyle,  observing  well  his  time, 
took  up  a  lance  of  wondrous  length  and  sharpness ;  and,  as  this 
pair  of  friends  compacted  stood  close  side  by  side,  he  wheeled 


298  JONATHAN  SWIFT. 

him   to   the  right,  and,  with  unusual  force,  darted  the  weapon. 
Bentiey  saw  his  fate  approach,  and  flanking  down  his  arms  close 
to  his  ribs,  hoping  to  save  his  body,  in  went  the  point,  passing 
through  arm  and  side,  nor  stopped  or  spent  its  force  till  it  had 
also  pierced  the  valiant  Wotton,  who,  going  to  sustain  his  dying 
friend,  shared    his   fate.     As   when  a  skilful  cook  has  trussed  a 
brace  of  woodcocks,  he  with  iron  skewer  pierces  the  tender  sides 
of  both,  their  legs  and  wings  close  pinioned  to  the  ribs ;  so  was 
this  pair  of  friends  transfixed,  till  down  they  fell,  joined  in  their 
lives,  joined  in  their  deaths ;  so  closely  joined  that  Charon  would 
mistake  them  both  for  one,  and  waft  them  over  Styx  for  half  his 
fare.     Farewell,  beloved,  loving   pair ;    few  equals  have  you  left 
behind  :  and  happy  and  immortal  shall  you  be,  if  all  my  wit  and 
eloquence  can  make  you. 

And  now  ...... 

Desunt  ctztera™ 

23  The  rest  is  -wanting. 


XV. 

JOSEPH    ADDISON. 

(1672-1719.) 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR. 
i.   THE  COVERLEY  PAPERS. 

[Written  in  1711-12.] 
No.  34.  MONDAY,  April  9, 1711. 

THE  club  of  which  I  am  a  member,  is  very  luckily  composed  of 
such  persons  as  are  engaged  in  different  ways  of  life,  and  deputed 
as  it  were  out  of  the  most  conspicuous  classes  of  mankind.  By 
this  means  I  am  furnished  with  the  greatest  variety  of  hints  and 
materials,  and  know  everything  that  passes  in  the  different  quarters 
and  divisions,  not  only  of  this  great  city,  but  of  the  whole  kingdom. 
My  readers,  too,  have  the  satisfaction  to  find  that  there  is  no  rank 
or  degree  among  them  who  have  not  their  representative  in  this 
club,  and  that  there  is  always  somebody  present  who  will  take 
care  of  their  respective  interests,  that  nothing  may  be  written  or 
published  to  the  prejudice  or  infringement  of  their  just  rights  and 
privileges. 

I  last  night  sat  very  late  in  company  with  this  select  body  of 
friends,  who  entertained  me  with  several  remarks  which  they  and 
others  had  made  upon  these  my  speculations,  as  also  with  the 
various  success  which  they  had  met  with  among  their  several  ranks 
and  degrees  of  readers.  Will  Honeycomb  told  me,  in  the  softest 
manner  he  could,  that  there  were  some  ladies,  but  for  your  com- 
fort, says  Will,  they  are  not  those  of  the  most  wit,  that  were 
offended  with  the  liberties  I  had  taken  with  the  opera  and  the 
puppet-show ;  that  some  of  them  were  likewise  very  much  sur- 

299 


300  yoSEPH  ADDISON. 

prised  that  I  should  think  such  serious  points  as  the  dress  and 
equipage  of  persons  of  quality  proper  subjects  for  raillery. 

He  was  going  on,  when  Sir  Andrew  Freeport  took  him  up  short, 
and  told  him  that  the  papers  he  hinted  at  had  done  great  good  in 
the  city,  and  that  all  their  wives  and  daughters  were  the  better  for 
them ;  and  further  added  that  the  whole  city  thought  themselves 
very  much  obliged  to  me  for  declaring  my  generous  intentions  to 
scourge  vice  and  folly  as  they  appear  in  a  multitude,  without  con- 
descending to  be  a  publisher  of  particular  intrigues.  ...  'In  short,' 
says  Sir  Andrew,  '  if  you  avoid  that  foolish  beaten  road  of  falling 
upon  aldermen  and  citizens,  and  employ  your  pen  upon  the  vanity 
and  luxury  of  courts,  your  paper  must  needs  be  of  general  use.' 

Upon  this  my  friend  the  Templar  told  Sir  Andrew  that  he  won- 
dered to  hear  a  man  of  his  sense  talk  after  that  manner  ;  that  the 
city  had  always  been  the  province  for  satire ;  and  that  the  wits  of 
King  Charles's  time  jested  upon  nothing  else  during  his  whole 
reign.  He  then  showed,  by  the  examples  of  Horace,  Juvenal, 
Boileau,  and  the  best  writers  of  every  age,  that  the  follies  of  the 
stage  and  court  had  never  been  accounted  too  sacred  for  ridicule, 
how  great  soever  the  persons  might  be  that  patronized  them. 
'  But  after  all,'  says  he,  '  I  think  your  raillery  has  made  too  great 
an  excursion,  in  attacking  several  persons  of  the  inns  of  court ; 
and  I  do  not  believe  you  can  show  me  any  precedent  for  your 
behaviour  in  that  particular.' 

My  good  friend  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  who  had  said  nothing 
all  this  while,  began  his  speech  with  a  pish  !  and  told  us,  that  he 
wondered  to  see  so  many  men  of  sense  so  very  serious  upon  fooleries. 
'  Let  our  good  friend,'  says  he,  '  attack  every  one  that  deserves  it ; 
I  would  only  advise  you,  Mr.  Spectator,'  applying  himself  to  me, 
'  to  take  care  how  you  meddle  with  country  'squires.  They  are 
the  ornaments  of  the  English  nation ;  men  of  good  heads  and 
sound  bodies  !  and  let  me  tell  you,  some  of  them  take  it  ill  of  you, 
that  you  mention  fox-hunters  with  so  little  respect.' 

Captain  Sentry  spoke  very  sparingly  on  this  occasion.  What 
he  said  was  only  to  commend  my  prudence  in  not  touching  upon 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  301 

the  army,  and  advised  me  to  continue  to  act  discreetly  in  that 
point. 

By  this  time  I  found  every  subject  of  my  speculations  was 
taken  away  from  me  by  one  or  other  of  the  club  :  and  began  to 
think  myself  in  the  condition  of  the  good  man  that  had  one  wife 
who  took  a  dislike  to  his  gray  hairs,  and  another  to  his  black,  till 
by  their  picking  out  what  each  of  them  had  an  aversion  to,  they 
left  his  head  altogether  bald  and  naked. 

While  I  was  thus  musing  with  myself,  my  worthy  friend  the 
clergyman,  who,  very  luckily  for  me,  was  at  the  .club  that  night, 
undertook  my  cause.  He  told  us,  that  he  wondered  any  order  of 
persons  should  think  themselves  too  considerable  to  be  advised. 
That  it  was  not  quality,  but  innocence,  which  exempted  men  from 
reproof.  That  vice  and  folly  ought  to  be  attacked  wherever  they 
could  be  met  with,  and  especially  when  they  were  placed  in  high 
and  conspicuous  stations  of  life.  He  further  added  that  my 
paper  would  only  serve  to  aggravate  the  pains  of  poverty,  if  it 
chiefly  exposed  those  who  are  already  depressed,  and  in  some 
measure  turned  into  ridicule,  by  the  meanness  of  their  conditions 
and  circumstances.  He  afterwards  proceeded  to  take  notice  of 
the  great  use  this  paper  might  be  of  to  the  public,  by  reprehend- 
ing those  vices  which  are  too  trivial  for  the  chastisement  of  the 
law,  and  too  fantastical  for  the  cognizance  of  the  pulpit.  He 
then  advised  me  to  prosecute  my  undertaking  with  cheerfulness, 
and  assured  me  that  whoever  might  be  displeased  with  me,  I 
should  be  approved  by  all  those  whose  praises  do  honour  to  the 
persons  on  whom  they  are  bestowed. 

The  whole  club  pay  a  particular  deference  to  the  discourse  of 
this  gentleman,  and  are  drawn  into  what  he  says,  as  much  by  the 
candid  ingenuous  manner  with  which  he  delivers  himself,  as  by 
the  strength  of  argument  and  force  of  reason  which  he  makes  use 
of.  Will  Honeycomb  immediately  agreed  that  what  he  had  said 
was  right ;  and  that,  for  his  part,  he  would  not  insist  upon  the 
quarter  which  he  had  demanded  for  the  ladies.  Sir  Andrew  gave 
up  the  city  with  the  same  frankness.  The  Templar  would  not 


302  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

stand  out  and  was  followed  by  Sir  Roger  and  the  Captain ;  who 
all  agreed  that  I  should  be  at  liberty  to  carry  the  war  into 
what  quarter  I  pleased ;  provided  I  continued  to  combat  with 
criminals  in  a  body,  and  to  assault  the  vice  without  hurting  the 
person. 

This  debate,  which  was  held  for  the  good  of  mankind,  put  me 
in  mind  of  that  which  the  Roman  triumvirate  were  formerly 
engaged  in  for  their  destruction.  Every  man  at  first  stood  hard 
for  his  friend,  till  they  found  that  by  this  means  they  should  spoil 
their  proscription ;  and  at  length,  making  a  sacrifice  of  all  their 
acquaintance  and  relations,  furnished  out  a  very  decent  execution. 

Having  thus  taken  my  resolutions  to  march  on  boldly  in  the 
cause  of  virtue  and  good  sense,  and  to  annoy  their  adversaries  in 
whatever  degree  or  rank  of  men  they  may  be  found ;  I  shall  be 
deaf  for  the  future  to  all  the  remonstrances  that  shall  be  made  to 
me  on  this  account.  If  Punch  grows  extravagant,  I  shall  repri- . 
mand  him  very  freely.  If  the  stage  becomes  a  nursery  of  folly 
and  impertinence,  I  shall  not  be  afraid  to  animadvert  upon  it. 
In  short,  if  I  meet  with  anything  in  city,  court,  or  country,  that 
shocks  modesty  or  good  manners,  I  shall  use  my  utmost  endeav- 
ours to  make  an  example  of  it.  I  must,  however,  entreat  every 
particular  person,  who  does  me  the  honour  to  be  a  reader  of  this 
paper,  never  to  think  himself  or  any  one  of  his  friends  or  enemies, 
aimed  at  in  what  is  said  :  for  I  promise  him,  never  to  draw  a 
faulty  character  which  does  not  fit  at  least  a  thousand  people  ;  or 
to  publish  a  single  paper,  that  is  not  written  in  the  spirit  of 
benevolence,  and  with  a  love  to  mankind. 

No.  106.  MONDAY,  July  2, 1711. 

Having  often  received  an  invitation  from  my  friend  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverley  to  pass  away  a  month  with  him  in  the  country,  I  last 
week  accompanied  him  thither,  and  am  settled  with  him  for  some 
time  at  his  country-house,  where  I  intend  to  form  several  of  my 
ensuing  speculations.  Sir  Roger,  who  is  very  well  acquainted  with 
my  humour,  lets  me  rise  and  go  to  bed  when  I  please,  dine  at  his 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  303 

own  table  or  in  my  chamber  as  I  think  fit,  sit  still  and  say  nothing 
without  bidding  me  be  merry.  When  the  gentlemen  of  the 
country  come  to  see  him,  he  only  shows  me  at  a  distance.  As  I 
have  been  walking  in  his  fields  I  have  observed  them  stealing  a 
sight  of  me  over  a  hedge,  and  have  heard  the  knight  desiring 
them  not  to  let  me  see  them,  for  that  I  hated  to  be  stared  at. 

I  am  the  more  at  ease  in  Sir  Roger's  family,  because  it  consists 
of  sober  and  staid  persons ;  for  as  the  knight  is  the  best  master  in 
the  world,  he  seldom  changes  his  servants ;  and  as  he  is  beloved 
by  all  about  him,  his  servants  never  care  for  leaving  him  :  by  this 
means  his  domestics  are  all  in  years,  and  grown  old  with  their 
master.  You  would  take  his  valet  de  chambre  for  his  brother,  his 
butler  is  gray-headed,  his  groom  is  one  of  the  gravest  men  that  I 
have  ever  seen,  and  his  coachman  has  the  looks  of  a  privy-coun- 
sellor. You  see  the  goodness  of  the  master  even  in  the  old 
house-dog,  and  in  a  gray  pad1  that  is  kept  in  the  stable  with  great 
care  and  tenderness  out  of  regard  to  his  past  services,  though  he 
has  been  useless  for  several  years. 

I  could  not  but  observe  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  the  joy 
that  appeared  in  the  countenances  of  these,  ancient  domestics 
upon  my  friend's  arrival  at  his  country-seat.  Some  of  them  could 
not  refrain  from  tears  at  the  sight  of  their  old  master ;  every  one 
of  them  pressed  forward  to  do  something  for  him,  and  seemed 
discouraged  if  they  were  not  employed.  At  the  same  time  the 
good  old  knight,  with  a  mixture  of  the  father  and  the  master  of 
the  family,  tempered  the  inquiries  after  his  own  affairs  with  several 
kind  questions  relating  to  themselves.  This  humanity  and  good 
nature  engages  everybody  to  him,  so  that  when  he  is  pleasant 
upon  any  of  them,  all  his  family  are  in  good  humour,  and  none  so 
much  as  the  person  whom  he  diverts  himself  with  :  on  the  con- 
trary, if  he  coughs,  or  betrays  any  infirmity  of  old  age,  it  is  easy 
for  a  stander-by  to  observe  a  secret  concern  in  the  looks  of  all  his 
servants. 

My  worthy  friend  has  put  me  under  the  particular  care  of  his 

1  an  easy-going  horse. 


304  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

butler,  who  is  a  very  prudent  man,  and,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  his 
fellow-servants,  wonderfully  desirous  of  pleasing  me,  because  they 
have  often  heard  their  master  talk  of  me  as  of  his  particular  friend. 

My  chief  companion,  when  Sir  Roger  is  diverting  himself  in 
the  woods  or  the  fields,  is  a  very  venerable  man  who  is  ever  with 
Sir  Roger,  and  has  lived  at  his  house  in  the  nature  of  a  chaplain 
above  thirty  years.  This  gentleman  is  a  person  of  good  sense 
and  some  learning,  of  a  very  regular  life  and  obliging  conversation  : 
he  heartily  loves  Sir  Roger,  and  knows  that  he  is  very  much  in  the 
old  knight's  esteem,  so  that  he  lives  in  the  family  rather  as  a 
relation  than  a  dependent. 

I  have  observed  in  several  of  my  papers,  that  my  friend  Sir 
Roger,  amidst  all  his  good  qualities,  is  something  of  a  humourist ; 
and  that  his  virtues,  as  well  as  imperfections,  are  as  it  were  tinged 
by  a  certain  extravagance,  which  makes  them  particularly  his,  and 
distinguishes  them  from  those  of  other  men.  This  cast  of  mind, 
as  it  is  generally  very  innocent  in  itself,  so  it  renders  his  conver- 
sation highly  agreeable,  and  more  delightful  than  the  same  degree 
of  sense  and  virtue  would  appear  in  their  common  and  ordinary 
colours.  As  I  was  walking  with  him  last  night,  he  asked  me  how  I 
liked  the  good  man  whom  I  have  just  now  mentioned  ?  and  with- 
out staying  for  my  answer  told  me  that  he  was  afraid  of  being 
insulted  with  Latin  and  Greek  at  his  own  table  ;  for  which  reason 
he  desired  a  particular  friend  of  his  at  the  university  to  find  him 
out  a  clergyman  rather  of  plain  sense  than  much  learning,  of  a 
good  aspect,  a  clear  voice,  a  sociable  temper,  and,  if  possible,  a 
man  that  understood  a  little  of  backgammon.  '  My  friend,'  says 
Sir  Roger,  '  found  me  out  this  gentleman,  who,  besides  the  endow- 
ments required  of  him,  is,  they  tell  me,  a  good  scholar,  though  he 
does  not  show  it.  I  have  given  him  the  parsonage  of  the  parish ; 
and  because  I  know  his  value,  have  settled  upon  him  a  good 
annuity  for  life.  If  he  outlives  me,  he  shall  find  that  he  was 
higher  in  my  esteem  than  perhaps  he  thinks  he  is.  He  has  now 
been  with  me  thirty  years ;  and  though  he  does  not  know  I  have 
taken  notice  of  it,  has  never  in  all  that  time  asked  anything  of  me 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  305 

for  himself,  though  he  is  every  day  soliciting  me  for  something  in 
behalf  of  one  or  other  of  my  tenants,  his  parishioners.  There 
has  not  been  a  lawsuit  in  the  parish  since  he  has  lived  among 
them  ;  if  any  dispute  arises  they  apply  themselves  to  him  for  the 
decision ;  if  they  do  not  acquiesce  in  his  judgment,  which  I  think 
never  happened  above  once  or  twice  at  most,  they  appeal  to  me. 
At  first  settling  with  me,  I  made  him  a  present  of  all  the  good 
sermons  which  have  been  printed  in  English,  and  only  begged  of 
him  that  every  Sunday  he  would  pronounce  one  of  them  in  the 
pulpit.  Accordingly  he  has  digested  them  into  such  a  series  that 
they  follow  one  another  naturally,  and  make  a  continued  system 
of  practical  divinity.' 

As  Sir  Roger  was  going  on  in  his  story,  the  gentleman  we 
were  talking  of  came  up  to  us ;  and  upon  the  knight's  asking  him 
who  preached  to-morrow,  for  it  was  Saturday  night,  told  us,  the 
bishop  of  St.  Asaph 2  in  the  morning,  and  Dr.  South  in  the  after- 
noon. He  then  showed  us  his  list  of  preachers  for  the  whole 
year,  where  I  saw,  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure,  Archbishop 
Tillotson,  Bishop  Saunderson,  Dr.  Barrow,  Dr.  Calamy,  with 
several  living  authors  who  have  published  discourses  of  practical 
divinity.  I  no  sooner  saw  this  venerable  man  in  the  pulpit,  but  I 
very  much  approved  of  my  friend's  insisting  upon  the  qualifica- 
tions of  a  good  aspect  and  a  clear  voice  ;  for  I  was  so  charmed 
with  the  gracefulness  of  his  figure  and  delivery,  as  well  as  the 
discourses  he  pronounced,  that  I  think  I  never  passed  any  time 
more  to  my  satisfaction.  A  sermon  repeated  after  this  manner,  is 
like  the  composition  of  a  poet  in  the  mouth  of  a  graceful  actor. 

I  could  heartily  wish  that  more  of  our  country  clergy  would 
follow  this  example  ;  and  instead  of  wasting  their  spirits  in  labo- 
rious compositions  of  their  own,  would  endeavour  after  a  handsome 
elocution,  and  all  those  other  talents  that  are  proper  to  enforce 
what  has  been  penned  by  greater  masters.  This  would  not  only 
be  more  easy  to  themselves,  but  more  edifying  to  the  people. 

2  "  Dr.  William  Fleetwood."  —  CHALMERS. 


306  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

No.  112.  MONDAY,  July  9,  1711. 

I  am  always  very  well  pleased  with  a  country  Sunday,  and  think, 
if  keeping  holy  the  seventh  day  were  only  a  human  institution,  it 
would  be  the  best  method  that  could  have  been  thought  of  for 
the  polishing  and  civilizing  of  mankind.  It  is  certain  the  country 
people  would  soon  degenerate  into  a  kind  of  savages  and  barba- 
rians, were  there  not  such  frequent  returns  of  a  stated  time,  in 
which  the  whole  village  meet  together  with  their  best  faces,  and  in 
their  cleanliest  habits,  to  converse  with  one  another  upon  indifferent 
subjects,  hear  their  duties  explained  to  them,  and  join  together  in 
adoration  of  the  Supreme  Being.  Sunday  clears  away  the  rust  of 
the  whole  week,  not  only  as  it  refreshes  in  their  minds  the  notions 
of  religion,  but  as  it  puts  both  the  sexes  upon  appearing  in  their 
most  agreeable  forms,  and  exerting  all  such  qualities  as  are  apt  to 
give  them  a  figure  in  the  eye  of  the  village.  A  country  fellow 
distinguishes  himself  as  much  in  the  churchyard,  as  a  citizen  does 
upon  the  'Change,  the  whole  parish  politics  being  generally  dis- 
cussed in  that  place  either  after  sermon  or  before  the  bell  rings. 

My  friend  Sir  Roger,  being  a  good  churchman,  has  beautified 
the  inside  of  his  church  with  several  texts  of  his  own  choosing. 
He  has  likewise  given  a  handsome  pulpit-cloth,  and  railed  in  the 
communion-table  at  his  own  expense.  He  has  often  told  me, 
that  at  his  coming  to  his  estate  he  found  his  parishioners  very  irreg- 
ular ;  and  that  in  order  to  make  them  kneel  and  join  in  the 
responses,  he  gave  every  one  of  them  a  hassock  and  a  common- 
prayer-book  ;  and  at  the  same  time  employed  an  itinerant  singing 
master,  who  goes  about  the  country  for  that  purpose,  to  instruct 
them  rightly  in  the  tunes  of  the  Psalms ;  upon  which  they  now 
very  much  value  themselves,  and  indeed  outdo  most  of  the  coun- 
try churches  that  I  have  ever  heard. 

As  Sir  Roger  is  landlord  to  the  whole  congregation,  he  keeps 
them  in  very  good  order,  and  will  suffer  nobody  to  sleep  in  it 
besides  himself;  for  if  by  chance  he  has  been  surprised  into  a  short 
nap  at  sermon,  upon  recovering  out  of  it  he  stands  up  and  looks 
about  him,  and  if  he  sees  anybody  else  nodding,  either  wakes  them 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  307 

himself,  or  sends  his  servant  to  them.  Several  other  of  the  old 
knight's  particularities  break  out  upon  these  occasions.  Some- 
times he  will  be  lengthening  out  a  verse  in  the  singing  Psalms  half 
a  minute  after  the  rest  of  the  congregation  have  done  with  it; 
sometimes,  when  he  is  pleased  with  the  matter  of  his  devotion, 
he  pronounces  amen  three  or  four  times  to  the  same  prayer ;  and 
sometimes  stands  up  when  everybody  else  is  upon  their  knees,  to 
count  the  congregation,  or  see  if  any  of  his  tenants  are  missing. 

I  was  yesterday  very  much  surprised  to  hear  my  old  friend,  in 
the  midst  of  the  service,  calling  out  to  one  John  Matthews  to  mind 
what  he  was  about,  and  not  to  disturb  the  congregation.  This 
John  Matthews  it  seems  is  remarkable  for  being  an  idle  fellow,  and 
at  that  time  was  kicking  his  heels  for  his  diversion.  This  authority 
of  the  knight,  though  exerted  in  that  odd  manner  which  accom- 
panies him  in  all  circumstances  of  life,  has  a  very  good  effect  upon 
the  parish,  who  are  not  polite  enough  to  see  any  thing  ridiculous 
in  his  behaviour ;  besides  that  the  general  good  sense  and  worthi- 
ness of  his  character  make  his  friends  observe  these  little  singulari- 
ties as  foils  that  rather  set  off  than  blemish  his  good  qualities. 

As  soon  as  the  sermon  is  finished,  nobody  presumes'  to  stir  till 
Sir  Roger  is  gone  out  of  the  church.  The  knight  walks  down  from 
his  seat  in  the  chancel  between  a  double  row  of  his  tenants,  that 
stand  bowing  to  him  on  each  side ;  and  every  now  and  then 
inquires  how  such  a  one's  wife,  or  mother,  or  son,  or  father  do, 
whom  he  does  not  see  at  church ;  which  is  understood  as  a  secret 
reprimand  to  the  person  that  is  absent. 

The  chaplain  has  often  told  me,  that  upon  a  catechising  day, 
when  Sir  Roger  has  been  pleased  with  a  boy  that  answers  well,  he 
has  ordered  a  bible  to  be  given  him  next  day  for  his  encourage- 
ment ;  and  sometimes  accompanies  it  with  a  flitch  of  bacon  to  his 
mother.  Sir  Roger  has  likewise  added  five  pounds  a  year  to  the 
clerk's  place ;  and  that  he  may  encourage  the  young  fellows  to 
make  themselves  perfect  in  the  church  service,  has  promised,  upon 
the  death  of  the  present  incumbent,  who  is  very  old,  to  bestow 
it  according  to  merit. 


308  JOSEPH  ADD  I  SON. 

The  fair  understanding  between  Sir  Roger  and  his  chapkin,  and 
their  mutual  concurrence  in  doing  good,  is  the  more  remarkable, 
because  the  very  next  village  is  famous  for  the  differences  and 
contentions  that  rise  between  the  parson  and  the  'squire,  who  live 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  war.  The  parson  is  always  preaching  at 
the  'squire ;  and  the  'squire,  to  be  revenged  on  the  parson,  never 
comes  to  church. 

The  'squire  has  made  all  his  tenants  atheists  and  tithe-stealers ; 
while  the  parson  instructs  them  every  Sunday  in  the  dignity  of  his 
order,  and  insinuates  to  them,  in  almost  every  sermon,  that  he  is  a 
better  man  than  his  patron.  In  short,  matters  are  come  to  such  an 
extremity,  that  the  'squire  has  not  said  his  prayers  either  in  public 
or  private  this  half  year ;  and  that  the  parson  threatens  him,  if  he 
does  not  mend  his  manners,  to  pray  for  him  in  the  face  of  the 
whole  congregation. 

Feuds  of  this  nature,  though  too  frequent  in  the  country,  are 
very  fatal  to  the  ordinary  people  ;  who  are  so  used  to  be  dazzled 
with  riches,  that  they  pay  as  much  deference  to  the  understanding 
of  a  man  of  an  estate,  as  of  a  man  of  learning ;  and  are  very 
hardly  brought  to  regard  any  truth,  how  important  soever  it  may 
be,  that  is  preached  to  them,  when  they  know  there  are  several 
men  of  five  hundred  a  year  who  do  not  believe  it. 

No.  122.  FRIDAY,  July  20,  1711. 

A  man's  first  care  should  be  to  avoid  the  reproaches  of  his  own 
heart ;  his  next,  to  escape  the  censures  of  the  world.  If  the  last 
interferes  with  the  former,  it  ought  to  be  entirely  neglected ;  but 
otherwise  there  cannot  be  a  greater  satisfaction  to  an  honest  mind 
than  to  see  those  approbations  which  it  gives  itself  seconded  by 
the  applauses  of  the  public.  A  man  is  more  sure  of  his  conduct, 
when  the  verdict  which  he  passes  upon  his  own  behaviour  is  thus 
warranted  and  confirmed  by  the  opinion  of  all  that  know  him. 

My  worthy  friend  Sir  Roger  is  one  of  those  who  is  not  only  at 
peace  within  himself,  but  beloved  and  esteemed  by  all  about  him. 
He  receives  a  suitable  tribute  for  his  universal  benevolence  to 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  309 

mankind,  in  the  returns  of  affection  and  good-will,  which  are 
paid  him  by  every  one  that  lives  within  his  neighbourhood.  I 
lately  met  with  two  or  three  odd  instances  of  that  general  respect 
which  is  shown  to  the  good  old  knight.  He  would  needs  carry 
Will  Wimble  and  myself  with  him  into  the  country  assizes.  As  we 
were  upon  the  road  Will  Wimble  joined  a  couple  of  plain  men 
who  rid  before  us,  and  conversed  with  them  for  some  time  ;  during 
which  my  friend  Sir  Roger  acquainted  me  with  their  characters. 

'  The  first  of  them,'  says  he,  '  that  has  a  spaniel  by  his  side,  is  a 
yeoman  of  about  a  hundred  pounds  a  year,  an  honest  man.  He  is 
just  within  the  game-act,  and  qualified  to  kill  a  hare  or  a  pheasant. 
He  knocks  down  a  dinner  with  a  gun  twice  or  thrice  a  week ;  and 
by  that  means  lives  much  cheaper  than  those  who  have  not  so 
good  an  estate  as  himself.  He  would  be  a  good  neighbour  if  he 
did  not  destroy  so  many  partridges.  In  short,  he  is  a  very  sensible 
man ;  shoots  flying,  and  has  been  several  times  foreman  of  the 
petty-jury. 

'  The  other  that  rides  along  with  him  is  Tom  Touchy,  a  fellow 
famous  for  "  taking  the  law  "  of  everybody.  There  is  not  one  in 
the  town  where  he  lives  that  he  has  not  sued  at  a  quarter  sessions. 
The  rogue  had  once  the  impudence  to  go  to  law  with  the  Widow. 
His  head  is  full  of  costs,  damages,  and  ejectments.  He  plagued  a 
couple  of  honest  gentlemen  so  long  for  a  trespass  in  breaking  one 
of  his  hedges,  till  he  was  forced  to  sell  the  ground  it  inclosed  to 
defray  the  charges  of  the  prosecution;  his  father  left  him  four- 
score pounds  a  year ;  but  he  has  cast  and  been  cast  so  often,  that 
he  is  not  now  worth  thirty.  I  suppose  he  is  going  upon  the  old 
business  of  the  willow-tree.' 

As  Sir  Roger  was  giving  me  this  account  of  Tom  Touchy,  Will 
Wimble  and  his  two  companions  stopped  short  till  we  came  up  to 
them.  After  having  paid  their  respects  to  Sir  Roger,  Will  told 
him  that  Mr.  Touchy  and  he  must  appeal  to  him  upon  a  dispute 
that  arose  between  them.  Will,  it  seems,  had  been  giving  his 
fellow-travellers  an  account  of  his  angling  one  day  in  such  a  hole  : 
when  Tom  Touchy,  instead  of  hearing  out  his  story,  told  him  that 


310  JOSEPH  ADD  I  SON. 

Mr.  Such-a-One,  if  he  pleased,  might  '  take  the  law  of  him/  for 
fishing  in  that  part  of  the  river.  My  friend  Sir  Roger  heard  them 
both,  upon  a  round  trot ;  and,  after  having  paused  some  time,  told 
them,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  would  not  give  his  judgment 
rashly,  that  '  much  might  be  said  on  both  sides.'  They  were 
neither  of  them  dissatisfied  with  the  knight's  determination, 
because  neither  of  them  found  himself  in  the  wrong  by  it.  Upon 
which  we  made  the  best  of  our  way  to  the  assizes. 

The  court  was  sat  before  Sir  Roger  came  ;  but  notwithstanding 
all  the  justices  had  taken  their  places  upon  the  bench,  they  made 
room  for  the  old  knight  at  the  head  of  them ;  who  for  his  reputa- 
tion in  the  country  took  occasion  to  whisper  in  the  judge's  ear,  that 
he  was  glad  his  lordship  had  met  with  so  much  good  weather  in 
his  circuit.  I  was  listening  to  the  proceedings  of  the  court  with 
much  attention,  and  infinitely  pleased  with  that  great  appearance 
of  solemnity  which  so  properly  accompanies  such  a  public  admin- 
istration of  our  laws  ;  when,  after  about  an  hour's  sitting,  I  observed, 
to  my  great  surprise,  in  the  midst  of  a  trial,  that  my  friend  Sir 
Roger  was  getting  up  to  speak.  I  was  in  some  pain  for  him,  till  I 
found  he  had  acquitted  himself  of  two  or  three  sentences  with  a 
look  of  much  business  and  great  intrepidity. 

Upon  his  first  rising  the  court  was  hushed,  and  a  general  whis- 
per ran  among  the  country  people  that  Sir  Roger  '  was  up.'  The 
speech  he  made  was  so  little  to  the  purpose  that  I  shall  not  trouble 
my  readers  with  an  account  of  it ;  and  I  believe  was  not  so  much 
designed  by  the  knight  himself  to  inform  the  court,  as  to  give  him 
a  figure  in  my  eye,  and  keep  up  his  credit  in  the  country. 

I  was  highly  delighted,  when  the  court  rose,  to  see  the  gentle- 
men of  the  country  gather  about  my  old  friend,  and  striving  who 
should  compliment  him  most ;  at  the  same  time  that  the  ordinary 
people  gazed  upon  him  at  a  distance,  not  a  little  admiring  his 
courage,  that  was  not  afraid  to  speak  to  the  judge. 

In  our  return  home  we  met  with  a  very  odd  accident ;  which  I 
cannot  forbear  relating,  because  it  shows  how  desirous  all  who 
know  Sir  Roger  are  of  giving  him  marks  of  their  esteem.  When 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  311 

we  were  arrived  upon  the  verge  of  his  estate,  we  stopped  at  a  little 
inn  to  rest  ourselves  and  our  horses.  The  man  of  the  house  had, 
it  seems,  been  formerly  a  servant  in  the  knight's  family  ;  and  to  do 
honour  to  his  old  master,  had  some  time  since,  unknown  to  Sir 
Roger,  put  him  up  in  a  sign-post  before  the  door;  so  that  the 
knight's  head  had  hung  out  upon  the  road  about  a  week  before 
he  himself  knew  anything  of  the  matter.  As  soon  as  Sir  Roger 
was  acquainted  with  it,  finding  that  his  servant's  indiscretion  pro- 
ceeded wholly  from  affection  and  good- will,  he  only  told  him  that 
he  had  made  him  too  high  a  compliment ;  and  when  the  fellow 
seemed  to  think  that  could  hardly  be,  added  with  a  more  decisive 
look,  that  it  was  too  great  an  honour  for  any  man  under  a  duke  ; 
but  told  him  at  the  same  time,  that  it  might  be  altered  with  a  very 
few  touches,  and  that  he  himself  would  be  at  the  charge  of  it. 
Accordingly  they  got  a  painter  by  the  knight's  directions  to  add  a 
pair  of  whiskers  to  the  face,  and,  by  a  little  aggravation  of  the  fea- 
tures, to  change  it  into  the  Saracen's  Head.  I  should  not  have 
known  this  story  had  not  the  inn-keeper,  upon  Sir  Roger's 
alighting,  told  him  in  my  hearing,  that  his  honour's  head  was 
brought  back  last  night  with  the  alterations  that  he  had  ordered  to 
be  made  in  it.  Upon  this  my  friend,  with  his  usual  cheerfulness, 
related  the  particulars  above  mentioned,  and  ordered  the  head  to 
be  brought  into  the  room.  I  could  not  forbear  discovering  greater 
expressions  of  mirth  than  ordinary  upon  the  appearance  of  this 
monstrous  face,  under  which,  notwithstanding  it  was  made  to 
frown  and  stare  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner,  I  could  still  dis- 
cover a  distant  resemblance  of  my  old  friend.  Sir  Roger,  upon 
seeing  me  laugh,  desired  me  to  tell  him  truly  if  I  thought  it  possi- 
ble for  people  to  know  him  in  that  disguise.  I  at  first  kept  my 
usual  silence ;  but  upon  the  knight's  conjuring  me  to  tell  him 
whether  it  was  not  still  more  like  himself  than  a  Saracen,  I  com- 
posed my  countenance  in  the  best  manner  I  could,  and  replied, 
that  '  much  might  be  said  on  both  sides.' 

These  several  adventures,  with  the  knight's  behaviour  in  them, 
gave  me  as  pleasant  a  day  as  ever  I  met  with  in  any  of  my  travels. 


312  JOSEPH  ADDIS  ON. 

No.  131.  TUESDAY,  July  31,  1711. 

It  is  usual  for  a  man  who  loves  country  sports  to  preserve  the 
game  in  his  own  grounds,  and  divert  himself  upon  those  that 
belong  to  his  neighbour.  My  friend  Sir  Roger  generally  goes  two 
or  three  miles  from  his  house,  and  gets  into  the  frontiers  of  his 
estate,  before  he  beats  about  in  search  of  a  hare  or  partridge,  on 
purpose  to  spare  his  own  fields,  where  he  is  always  sure  of  finding 
diversion,  when  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst.  By  this  means  the 
breed  about  his  house  has  time  to  increase  and  multiply,  besides  that 
the  sport  is  more  agreeable  where  the  game  is  the  harder  to  come  at, 
and  where  it  does  not  lie  so  thick  as  to  produce  any  perplexity  or 
confusion  in  the  pursuit.  For  these  reasons  the  country  gentle- 
man, like  the  fox,  seldom  preys  near  his  own  home. 

In  the  same  manner  I  have  made  a  month's  excursion  out  of 
the  town,  which  is  the  great  field  of  game  for  sportsmen  of  my 
species,  to  try  my  fortune  in  the  country,  where  I  have  started 
several  subjects,  and  hunted  them  down,  with  some  pleasure  to 
myself,  and  I  hope  to  others.  I  am  here  forced  to  use  a  great 
deal  of  diligence  before  I  can  spring  anything  to  my  mind,  where- 
as in  town,  whilst  I  am  following  one  character,  it  is  ten  to  one 
but  I  am  crossed  in  my  way  by  another,  and  put  up  such  a  variety  of 
odd  creatures  in  both  sexes,  that  they  foil  the  scent  of  one  another, 
and  puzzle  the  chase.  My  greatest  difficulty  in  the  country  is  to 
find  sport,  and  in  town  to  choose  it.  In  the  mean  time,  as  I  have 
given  a  whole  month's  rest  to  the  cities  of  London  and  Westmin- 
ster, I  promise  myself  abundance  of  new  game  upon  my  return 
thither. 

It  is  indeed  high  time  for  me  to  leave  the  country,  since  I  find 
the  whole  neighbourhood  begin  to  grow  very  inquisitive  after  my 
name  and  character ;  my  love  of  solitude,  taciturnity,  and  partic- 
ular way  of  life,  having  raised  a  great  curiosity  in  all  these  parts. 

The  notions  which  have  been  framed  of  me  are  various ;  some 
look  upon  me  as  very  proud,  some  as  very  modest,  and  some  as 
very  melancholy.  Will  Wimble,  as  my  friend  the  butler  tells  me, 
observing  me  very  much  alone,  and  extremely  silent  when  I  am  in 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  313 

company,  is  afraid  I  have  killed  a  man.  The  country  people  seem 
to  suspect  me  for  a  conjurer ;  and  some  of  them,  hearing  of  the 
visit  which  I  made  to  Moll  White,  will  needs  have  it  that  Sir 
Roger  has  brought  down  a  cunning  man  with  him,  to  cure  the  old 
woman,  and  free  the  country  from  her  charms.  So  that  the  char- 
acter which  I  go  under  in  part  of  the  neighbourhood,  is  what  they 
here  call  a  White  Witch. 

A  justice  of  peace,  who  lives  about  five  miles  off,  and  is  not  of 
Sir  Roger's  party,  has  it  seems  said  twice  or  thrice  at  his  table, 
that  he  wishes  Sir  Roger  does  not  harbour  a  Jesuit  in  his  house, 
and  that  he  thinks  the  gentlemen  of  the  country  would  do  very 
well  to  make  me  give  some  account  of  myself. 

On  the  other  side,  some  of  Sir  Roger's  friends  are  afraid  the  old 
knight  is  imposed  upon  by  a  designing  fellow ;  and  as  they  have 
heard  that  he  converses  very  promiscuously  when  he  is  in  town, 
do  not  know  but  he  has  brought  down  with  him  some  discarded 
Whig,  that  is  sullen,  and  says  nothing  because  he  is  out  of  place. 

Such  is  the  variety  of  opinions  which  are  here  entertained  of 
me,  so  that  I  pass  among  some  for  a  disaffected  person,  and 
among  others  for  a  popish  priest ;  among  some  for  a  wizard,  and 
among  others  for  a  murderer ;  and  all  this  for  no  other  reason  that 
I  can  imagine,  but  because  I  do  not  hoot,  and  halloo,  and  make 
a  noise.  It  is  true,  my  friend  Sir  Roger  tells  them,  — '  That  it  is 
my  way,'  and  that  I  am  only  a  philosopher;  but  this  will  not 
satisfy  them.  They  think  there  is  more  in  me  than  he  discovers, 
and  that  I  do  not  hold  my  tongue  for  nothing. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  I  shall  set  out  for  London  to-mor- 
row, having  found  by  experience  that  the  country  is  not  a  place 
for  a  person  of  my  temper,  who  does  not  love  jollity,  and  what 
they  call  good  neighbourhood.  A  man  that  is  out  of  humour  when 
an  unexpected  guest  breaks  in  upon  him,  and  does  not  care  for 
sacrificing  an  afternoon  to  every  chance-comer,  that  will  be  the 
master  of  his  own  time,  and  the  pursuer  of  his  own  inclinations, 
makes  but  a  very  unsociable  figure  in  this  kind  of  life.  I  shall 
therefore  retire  into  the  town,  if  I  may  make  use  of  that  phrase, 


314  JOSEPH  ADD  I  SON. 

and  get  into  the  crowd  again  as  fast  as  I  can,  in  order  to  be  alone. 
I  can  there  raise  what  speculations  I  please  upon  others  without 
being  observed  myself,  and  at  the  same  time  enjoy  all  the  advan- 
tages of  company,  with  all  the  privileges  of  solitude.  In  the 
mean  while,  to  finish  the  month,  and  conclude  these  my  rural 
speculations,  I  shall  here  insert  a  letter  from  my  friend  Will 
Honeycomb,  who  has  not  lived  a  month  for  these  forty  years  out 
of  the  smoke  of  London,  and  rallies  me  after  his  way  upon  my 
country  life. 

"DEAR  SPEC, 

"  I  suppose  this  letter  will  find  thee  picking  of  daisies,  or  smelling 
to  a  lock  of  hay,  or  passing  away  thy  time  in  some  innocent  coun- 
try diversion  of  the  like  nature.  I  have,  however,  orders  from  the 
club  to  summon  thee  up  to  town,  being  all  of  us  cursedly  afraid 
thou  wilt  not  be  able  to  relish  our  company,  after  thy  conversations 
with  Moll  White,  and  Will  Wimble.  Pr'ythee  do  not  send  us  up 
any  more  stories  of  a  cock  and  a  bull,  nor  frighten  the  town  with 
spirits  and  witches.  Thy  speculations  begin  to  smell  confoundedly 
of  woods  and  meadows.  If  thou  dost  not  come  up  quickly,  we 
shall  conclude  that  thou  art  in  love  with  one  of  Sir  Roger's  dairy- 
maids. Service  to  the  knight.  Sir  Andrew  is  grown  the  cock  of 
the  club  since  he  left  us,  and  if  he  does  not  return  quickly,  will 
make  every  mother's  son  of  us  commonwealth's-men. 
"  Dear  Spec, 

"  thine  eternally, 

"WILL  HONEYCOMB." 


2.   THE  ENGLISH  TONGUE. 
No.  135.  SATURDAY,  August  4,  1711. 

I  have  somewhere  read  of  an  eminent  person,  who  used  in  his 
private  orifices  of  devotion  to  give  thanks  to  heaven  that  he  was 
born  a  Frenchman ;  for  my  own  part,  I  look  upon  it  as  a  peculiar 
blessing  that  I  was  born  an  Englishman.  Among  many  other 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  315 

reasons,  I  think  myself  very  happy  in  my  country,  as  the  language 
of  it  is  wonderfully  adapted  to  a  man  who  is  sparing  of  his  words, 
and  an  enemy  to  loquacity. 

As  I  have  frequently  reflected  on  my  good  fortune  in  this  par- 
ticular, I  shall  communicate  to  the  public  my  speculations  upon 
the  English  tongue,  not  doubting  but  they  will  be  acceptable  to 
all  my  curious  readers. 

The  English  delight  in  silence  more  than  any  other  European 
nation,  if  the  remarks  which  are  made  on  us  by  foreigners  are 
true.  Our  discourse  is  not  kept  up  in  conversation,  but  falls  into 
more  pauses  and  intervals  than  in  our  neighbouring  countries  ;  as 
it  is  observed,  that  the  matter  of  our  writings  is  thrown  much 
closer  together,  and  lies  in  a  narrower  compass  than  is  usual  in  the 
works  of  foreign  authors ;  for,  to  favour  our  natural  taciturnity, 
when  we  are  obliged  to  utter  our  thoughts,  we  do  it  in  the  shortest 
way  we  are  able,  and  give  as  quick  a  birth  to  our  conceptions  as 
possible. 

This  humour  shows  itself  in  several  remarks  that  we  may  make 
upon  the  English  language.  As  first  of  all  by  its  abounding  in 
monosyllables,  which  gives  us  an  opportunity  of  delivering  our 
thoughts  in  few  sounds.  This  indeed  takes  off  from  the  elegance 
of  our  tongue,  but  at  the  same  time  expresses  our  ideas  in  the 
readiest  manner,  and  consequently  answers  the  first  design  of 
speech  better  than  the  multitude  of  syllables,  which  make  the 
words  of  other  languages  more  tunable  and  sonorous.  The  sounds 
of  our  English  words  are  commonly  like  those  of  string  music, 
short  and  transient,  which  rise  and  perish  upon  a  single  touch ; 
those  of  other  languages  are  like  the  notes  of  wind  instruments, 
sweet  and  swelling,  and  lengthened  out  into  variety  of  modulation. 

In  the  next  place  we  may  observe  that,  where  the  words  are 
not  monosyllables,  we  often  make  them  so,  as  much  as  lies  in  our 
power,  by  our  rapidity  of  pronunciation  ;  as  it  generally  happens 
in  most  of  our  long  words  which  are  derived  from  the  Latin,  where 
we  contract  the  length  of  the  syllables  that  give  them  a  grave 
and  solemn  air  in  their  own  language,  to  make  them  more  proper 


316  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

for  despatch,  and  more  conformable  to  the  genius  of  our  tongue. 
This  we  may  find  in  a  multitude  of  words,  as  '  liberty,  conspiracy, 
theatre,  orator,'  &c. 

The  same  natural  aversion  to  loquacity  has  of  late  years  made 
a  very  considerable  alteration  in  our  language,  by  closing  in  one 
syllable  the  termination  of  our  praeter-perfect  tense,  as  in  the 
words  '  drown'd,  walk'd,  arriv'd,'  for  '  drowned,  walked,  arrived,' 
which  has  very  much  disfigured  the  tongue,  and  turned  a  tenth 
part  of  our  smoothest  words  into  so  many  clusters  of  consonants. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable,  because  the  want  of  vowels  in  our 
language  has  been  the  general  complaint  of  our  politest  authors, 
who  nevertheless  are  the  men  that  have  made  these  retrench- 
ments, and  consequently  very  much  increased  our  former  scarcity. 

This  reflection  on  the  words  that  end  in  ED,  I  have  heard  in 
conversation  from  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses  this  age  has  pro- 
duced. 3  I  think  we  may  add  to  the  foregoing  observation,  the 
change  which  has  happened  in  our  language,  by  the  abbrevia- 
tion of  several  words  that  are  terminated  in  '  eth,'  by  substitut- 
ing an  '  s '  in  the  room  of  the  last  syllable,  as  in  '  drowns,  walks, 
arrives,'  and  innumerable  other  words,  which  in  the  pronunciation 
of  our  forefathers  were  '  drowneth,  walketh,  arriveth.'  This  has 
wonderfully  multiplied  a  letter  which  was  before  too  frequent  in 
the  English  tongue,  and  added  to  that  hissing  in  our  language, 
which  is  taken  so  much  notice  of  by  foreigners ;  but  at  the  same 
time  humours  our  taciturnity,  and  eases  us  of  many  superfluous 
syllables. 

I  might  here  observe  that  the  .same  single  letter  on  many 
occasions  does  the  office  of  a  whole  word,  and  represents  the 
'his '  and  '  her '  of  our  forefathers.  There  is  no  doubt  but  the  ear 
of  a  foreigner,  which  is  the  best  judge  in  this  case,  would  very 
much  disapprove  of  such  innovations,  which  indeed  we  do  our- 
selves in  some  measure,  by  retaining  the  old  termination  in  writ- 
ing, and  in  all  the  solemn  offices  of  our  religion. 

As  in  the  instances  I  have  given  we  have  epitomized' many  of 

8  "Probably  Dean  Swift."  —  CHALMERS. 


SELECTIONS  FROM    THE   SPECTATOR.  317 

our  particular  words  to  the  detriment  of  our  tongue,  so  on  other 
occasions  we  have  drawn  two  words  into  one,  which  has  likewise 
very  much  untuned  our  language,  and  clogged  it  with  consonants, 
as  '  mayn't,  can't,  sha'n't,  won't,'  and  the  like,  for  '  may  not,  can 
not,  shall  not,  will  not,'  &c. 

It  is  perhaps  this  humour  of  speaking  no  more  than  we  needs 
must,  which  has  so  miserably  curtailed  some  of  our  words  that  in 
familiar  writings  and  conversation  they  often  lose  all  but  their  first 
syllables,  as  in  '  mob.,  rep.,  pos.,  incog.'  and  the  like  ;  and  as  all 
ridiculous  words  make  their  first  entry  into  a  language  by  familiar 
phrases,  I  dare  not  answer  for  these,  that  they  will  not  in  time  be 
looked  upon  as  a  part  of  our  tongue.  We  see  some  of  our  poets 
have  been  so  indiscreet  as  to  imitate  Hudibras's  doggerel  expres- 
sions in  their  serious  compositions,  by  throwing  out  the  signs  of 
our  substantives  which  are  essential  to  the  English  language.  Nay, 
this  humour  of  shortening  our  language  had  once  run  so  far  that 
some  of  our  celebrated  authors,  among  whom  we  may  reckon  Sir 
Roger  L'Estrange  in  particular,  began  to  prune  their  words  of  all 
superfluous  letters,  as  they  termed  them,  in  order  to  adjust  the 
spelling  to  the  pronunciation ;  which  would  have  confounded  all 
our  etymologies,  and  have  quite  destroyed  our  tongue. 

We  may  here  likewise  observe  that  our  proper  names,  when 
familiarized  in  English,  generally  dwindle  to  monosyllables,  whereas 
in  other  modern  languages  they  receive  a  softer  turn  on  this  occa- 
sion by  the  addition  of  a  new  syllable.  —  Nick,  in  Italian,  is  Nico- 
lini ;  Jack,  in  French,  Janot ;  and  so  of  the  rest. 

There  is  another  particular  in  our  language  which  is  a  great 
instance  of  our  frugality  of  words,  and  that  is  the  suppressing  of 
several  particles  which  must  be  produced  in  other  tongues  to  make 
a  sentence  intelligible.  This  often  perplexes  the  best  writers, 
when  they  find  the  relatives  '  whom,  which,  or  they,'  at  their 
mercy,  whether  they  may  have  admission  or  not ;  and  will  never  be 
decided  till  we  have  something  like  an  academy,  that  by  the  best 
authorities  and  rules  drawn  from  the  analogy  of  languages  shall 
settle  all  controversies  between  grammar  and  idiom. 


318  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

I  have  only  considered  our  language  as  it  shows  the  genius  and 
natural  temper  of  the  English,  which  is  modest,  thoughtful,  and 
sincere,  and  which,  perhaps,  may  recommend  the  people,  though 
it  has  spoiled  the  tongue.  We  might,  perhaps,  carry  the  same 
thought  into  other  languages,  and  deduce  a  great  part  of  what  is 
peculiar  to  them  from  the  genius  of  the  people  who  speak  them. 
It  is  certain,  the  light  talkative  humour  of  the  French  has  not  a 
little  infected  their  tongue,  which  might  be  shown  by  many 
instances  ;  as  the  genius  of  the  Italians,  which  is  so  much  addicted 
to  music  and  ceremony,  has  moulded  all  their  words  and  phrases 
to  those  particular  uses.  The  stateliness  and  gravity  of  the  Span- 
iards shows  itself  to  perfection  in  the  solemnity  of  their  language  ; 
and  the  blunt  honest  humour  of  the  Germans  sounds  better  in  the 
roughness  of  the  High-Dutch,  than  it  would  in  a  politer  tongue. 

3.   CRITICISM  ON  MILTON'S  PARADISE  LOST. 
No.  291.  SATURDAY,  February  z,  1712. 

I  have  now  consider'd  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  under  those  four 
great  Heads  of  the  Fable,  the  Characters,  the  Sentiments,  and  the 
Language  ;  and  have  shewn  that  he  excels,  in  general,  under  each 
of  these  Heads.  I  hope  that  I  have  made  several  Discoveries 
that  [which]  4  may  appear  new,  even  to  those  who  are  versed  in 
Critical  Learning.  Were  I  indeed  to  chuse  my  Readers,  by 
whose  Judgment  I  would  stand  or  fall,  they  should  not  be  such 
as  are  acquainted  only  with  the  French  and  Italian  Criticks,  but 
also  with  the  Ancient  and  Moderns  who  have  written  in  either  of 
the  learned  Languages.  Above  all,  I  would  have  them  well  versed 
in  the  Greek  and  Latin  Poets,  without  which  a  Man  very  often 
fancies  that  he  understands  a  Critick,  when  in  reality  he  does  not 
comprehend  his  Meaning. 

It  is  in  Criticism,  as  in  all  other  Sciences  and  Speculations ;  one 
who  brings  with  him  any  implicit  Notions  and  Observations  which 
he  has  made  in  his  reading  of  the  Poets,  will  find  his  own  Reflec- 

*  "Variations  of  the  second  edition." —  ARBER. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  319 

tions  methodized  and  explained,  and  perhaps  several  little  Hints 
that  had  passed  in  his  Mind,  perfected  and  improved  in  the  Works 
of  a  good  Critick  ;  whereas  one  who  has  not  these  previous  Lights, 
is  very  often  an  utter  Stranger  to  what  he  reads,  and  apt  to  put 
a  wrong  Interpretation  upon  it. 

Nor  is  it  sufficient,  that  a  Man  who  sets  up  for  a  Judge  in  Crit- 
icism, should  have  perused  the  Authors  above-mentioned,  unless 
he  has  also  a  clear  and  Logical  Head.  Without  this  Talent  he  is 
perpetually  puzzled  and  perplexed  amidst  his  own  Blunders,  mis- 
takes the  sense  of  those  he  would  confute,  or  if  he  chances  to 
think  right,  does  not  know  how  to  convey  his  Thoughts  to  another 
with  Clearness  and  Perspicuity.  Aristotle,  who  was  the  best  Crit- 
ick, was  also  one  of  the  best  Logicians  that  ever  appeared  in  the 
World. 

Mr.  Lock's  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  would  be  thought  a 
very  odd  Book  for  a  Man  to  make  himself  Master  of,  who  would 
get  a  Reputation  by  Critical  Writings ;  though  at  the  same  time  it 
is  very  certain,  that  an  Author  who  has  not  learn'd  the  Art  of 
distinguishing  between  Words  and  Things,  and  of  ranging  his 
Thoughts,  and  setting  them  in  proper  Lights,  whatever  Notions  he 
may  have,  will  lose  himself  in  Confusion  and  Obscurity.  I  might 
further  observe,  that  there  is  not  a  Greek  or  Latin  Critick,  who 
has  not  shewn,  even  in  the  style  of  his  Criticisms,  that  he  was  a 
Master  of  all  the  Elegance  and  Delicacy  of  his  Native  Tongue. 

The  truth  of  it  is,  there  is  nothing  more  absurd,  than  for  a  Man 
to  set  up  for  a  Critick,  without  a  good  Insight  into  all  the  Parts  of 
Learning ;  whereas  many  of  those  who  have  endeavoured  to  sig- 
nalize themselves  by  Works  of  this  Nature  among  our  English 
Writers,  are  not  only  defective  in  the  above-mentioned  Particu- 
lars, but  plainly  discover  by  the  Phrases  which  they  make  use  of, 
and  by  their  confused  way  of  thinking,  that  they  are  not  acquainted 
with  the  most  common  and  ordinary  Systems  of  Arts  and  Sciences. 
A  few  general  Rules  extracted  out  of  the  French  Authors,  with  a 
certain  Cant  of  Words,  has  sometimes  set  up  an  Illiterate  heavy 
Writer  for  a  most  judicious  and  formidable  Critick. 


320  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

One  great  Mark,  by  which  you  may  discover  a  Critick  who  has 
neither  Taste  nor  Learning,  is  this,  that  he  seldom  ventures  to 
praise  any  Passage  in  an  Author  which  has  not  been  before  re- 
ceived and  applauded  by  the  Publick,  and  that  his  Criticism  turns 
wholly  upon  little  Faults  and  Errors.  This  part  of  a  Critick  is  so 
very  easie  to  succeed  in,  that  we  find  every  ordinary  Reader,  upon 
the  publishing  of  a  new  Poem,  has  Wit  and  Ill-nature  enough  to 
turn  several  Passages  of  it  into  Ridicule,  and  very  often  in  the 
right  Place.  This  Mr.  Dry  den  has  very  agreeably  remarked  in 
those  two  celebrated  Lines, 

Errors,  like  Straws,  upon  the  Surface  flow ; 
He  who  would  search  for  Pearls  must  dive  below. 

A  true  Critick  ought  to  dwell  rather  upon  Excellencies  than 
Imperfections,  to  discover  the  concealed  Beauties  of  a  Writer,  and 
communicate  to  the  World  such  things  as  are  worth  their  Observa- 
tion. The  most  exquisite  Words  and  finest  Strokes  of  an  Author 
are  those  which  very  often  appear  the  most  doubtful  and  excep- 
tionable, to  a  Man  who  wants  a  Relish  for  polite  Learning ;  and 
they  are  these,  which  a  sower  [soure]  undistinguishing  Critick  gen- 
erally attacks  with  the  greatest  Violence.  Tully  observes,  that  it  is 
very  easie  to  brand  or  fix  a  Mark  upon  what  he  calls  Verbum 
ardens,  or,  as  it  may  be  rendered  into  English,  a  gloibing  bold 
Expression,  and  to  turn  it  into  Ridicule  by  a  cold,  ill-natured 
Criticism.  A  little  Wit  is  equally  capable  of  exposing  a  Beauty, 
and  of  aggravating  a  Fault ;  and  though  such  a  Treatment  of  an 
Author  naturally  produces  Indignation  in  the  Mind  of  an  under- 
standing Reader,  it  has  however  its  effect  among  the  generality  of 
those  whose  Hands  it  falls  into,  the  Rabble  of  Mankind  being 
very  apt  to  think  that  everything  which  is  laughed  at  with  any 
mixture  of  Wit,  is  ridiculous  in  it  self. 

Such  a  Mirth  as  this,  is  always  unseasonable  in  a  Critick,  as  it 
rather  prejudices  the  Reader  than  convinces  him,  and  is  capable 
of  making  a  Beauty,  as  well  as  a  Blemish,  the  subject  of  Derision. 
A  Man  who  cannot  write  with  Wit  on  a  proper  Subject,  is  dull 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  321 

and  stupid,  but  one  who  shews  it  in  an  improper  place,  is  as  im- 
pertinent and  absurd.  Besides,  a  Man  who  has  the  gift  of  Rid- 
icule is  very  * 5  apt  to  find  Fault  with  anything  that  gives  him  an 
Opportunity  of  exerting  his  beloved  Talent,  and  very  often  cen- 
sures a  Passage,  not  because  there  is  any  Fault  in  it,  but  because 
he  can  be  merry  upon  it.  Such  kinds  of  Pleasantry  are  very 
unfair  and  disingenuous  in  Works  of  Criticism,  in  which  the 
greatest  Masters,  both  Ancient  and  Modern,  have  always  ap- 
peared with  a  serious  and  instructive  Air. 

As  I  intend  in  my  next  Paper  to  show  the  Defects  in  Milton'^ 
Paradise  Lost,  I  thought  fit  to  premise  these  few  Particulars,  to 
the  End  that  the  Reader  may  know  I  enter  upon  it,  as  on  a  very 
ungrateful  Work,  and  that  I  shall  just  point  at  the  Imperfections, 
without  endeavouring  to  inflame  them  with  Ridicule.  I  must  also 
observe  with  Longinus,  that  the  Productions  of  a  great  Genius, 
with  many  Lapses  and  Inadvertencies,  are  infinitely  preferable  to 
the  Works  of  an  inferior  kind  of  author,  which  are  scrupulously 
exact  and  conformable  to  all  the  Rules  of  correct  Writing. 

I  shall  conclude  my  Paper  with  a  Story  out  of  Boccalini,  which 
sufficiently  shews  us  the  Opinion  that  Judicious  Author  entertained 
of  the  sort  of  Criticks  I  have  been  here  mentioning.  A  famous 
Critick,  says  he,  having  gathered  together  all  the  Faults  of  an 
Eminent  Poet,  made  a  Present  of  them  to  Apollo,  who  received 
them  very  graciously,  and  resolved  to  make  the  Author  a  suitable 
Return  for  the  Trouble  he  had  been  at  in  collecting  them.  In 
order  to  this,  he  set  before  him  a  Sack  of  Wheat,  as  it  had  been 
just  threshed  out  of  the  Sheaf.  He  then  bid  him  pick  out  the 
Chaff  from  among  the  Corn,  and  lay  it  aside  by  it  self.  The  Crit- 
ick applied  himself  to  the  Task  with  great  Industry  and  Pleasure, 
and  after  having  made  the  due  Separation,  was  presented  by  Apollo 
with  the  Chaff  for  his  Pains. 

8  "  Words  in  the  first,  omitted  in  the  second  edition."  — ARBER. 


322  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

No.  297.  SATURDAY,  February  9,  1712. 

After  what  I  have  said  in  my  last  Saturday's  Paper,  I  shall 
enter  on  the  Subject  of  this  without  farther  Preface,  and  remark 
the  several  Defects  which  appear  in  the  Fable,  the  Characters,  the 
Sentiments,  and  the  Language  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost;  not 
doubting  but  the  reader  will  pardon  me,  if  I  alledge  at  the  same 
time  whatever  may  be  said  for  the  Extenuation  of  such  Defects. 
The  first  Imperfection  which  I  shall  observe  in  the  Fable  is,  that 
the  Event  of  it  is  unhappy. 

The  Fable  of  every  Poem  is  according  to  Aristotle's  Division 
either  Simple  or  Implex. 6  It  is  called  Simple  when  there  is  no 
change  of  Fortune  in  it,  Implex  when  the  Fortune  of  the  chief 
Actor  changes  from  Bad  to  Good,  or  from  Good  to  Bad.  The 
Implex  Fable  is  thought  the  most  perfect ;  I  suppose,  because  it 
is  most  proper  to  stir  up  the  Passions  of  the  Reader,  and  to  sur- 
prise him  with  a  great  variety  of  Accidents. 

The  Implex  Fable  is  therefore  of  two  kinds  :  In  the  first  the 
chief  Actor  makes  his  way  through  a  long  Series  of  Dangers  and 
Difficulties,  'till  he  arrives  at  Honour  and  Prosperity,  as  we  see  in 
the  Stories  [Story] 4  of  Ulysses  and  *^Eneas.*5  In  the  second,  the 
chief  Actor  in  the  Poem  falls  from  some  eminent  pitch  of  Honour 
and  Prosperity,  into  Misery  and  Disgrace.  Thus  we  see  Adam 
and  Eve  sinking  from  a  state  of  Innocence  and  Happiness,  into 
the  most  abject  Condition  of  Sin  and  Sorrow. 

The  most  taking  Tragedies  among  the  Ancients  were  built  on 
this  last  sort  of  Implex  Fable,  particularly  the  Tragedy  of  (Edipus 
which  proceeds  upon  a  Story,  if  we  may  believe  Aristotle,  the  most 
proper  for  Tragedy  that  could  be  invented  by  the  Wit  of  Man.  I 
have  taken  some  pains  in  a  former  Paper  to  shew,  that  this  kind 
of  Implex  Fable,  wherein  the  Event  is  unhappy,  is  more  apt  to 
affect  an  Audience  than  that  of  the  first  kind;  notwithstanding 
many  excellent  Pieces  among  the  Ancients,  as  well  as  most  of 
those  which  have  been  written  of  late  Years  in  our  own  Country, 
are  raised  upon  contrary  Plans.  I  must  however  own,  that  I 

6  involved. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  323 

think  this  kind  of  Fable,  which  is  the  most  perfect  in  Tragedy,  is 
not  so  proper  for  an  Heroic  Poem. 

Milton  seems  to  have  been  sensible  of  this  Imperfection  in  his 
Fable,  and  has  therefore  endeavoured  to  cure  it  by  several  Ex- 
pedients ;  particularly  by  the  Mortification  which  the  great  Adver- 
sary of  Mankind  meets  with  upon  his  return  to  the  Assembly  of 
Infernal  Spirits,  as  it  is  described  in  that  [a]  beautiful  Passage  of 
the  tenth  Book ;  and  likewise  by  the  Vision,  wherein  Adam  at  the 
close  of  the  Poem  sees  his  Offspring  triumphing  over  his  great 
Enemy,  and  himself  restored  to  a  happier  Paradise  than  that  from 
which  he  fell. 

There  is  another  Objection  against  Milton's  Fable,  which  is 
indeed  almost  the  same  with  the  former,  tho'  placed  in  a  different 
Light,  namely,  That  the  Hero  in  the  Paradise  Lost  is  unsuccessful, 
and  by  no  means  a  Match  for  his  Enemies.  This  gave  occasion 
to  Mr.  Dryden's  Reflection,  that  the  Devil  was  in  reality  Milton's 
Hero.  I  think  I  have  obviated  this  Objection  in  my  first  Paper. 
The  Paradise  Lost  is  an  Epic,  [or  a]  Narrative  Poem ;  he  that 
looks  for  an  Hero  in  it,  searches  for  that  which  Milton  never  in- 
tended ;  but  if  he  will  needs  fix  the  Name  of  an  Hero  upon  any 
Person  in  it,  'tis  certainly  the  Messiah  who  is  the  Hero,  both  in 
the  Principal  Action,  and  in  the  [chief]  Episode  [s].  Paganism 
could  not  furnish  out  a  real  Action  for  a  Fable  greater  than  that 
of  the  Iliad  or  ALneid,  and  therefore  an  Heathen  could  not  form 
a  higher  Notion  of  a  Poem  than  one  of  that  kind,  which  they  call 
an  Heroic.  Whether  Milton's  is  not  of  a  greater  [sublimer] 
Nature,  I  will  not  presume  to  determine ;  it  is  sufficient  that  I 
shew  there  is  in  the  Paradise  Lost  all  the  Greatness  of  Plan, 
Regularity  of  Design,  and  masterly  Beauties  which  we  discover 
in  Homer  and  Virgil. 

I  must,  in  the  next  Place,  observe  that  Milton  has  interwoven  in 
the  Texture  of  his  Fable  some  Particulars  which  do  not  seem  to 
have  Probability  enough  for  an  Epic  Poem,  particularly  in  the 
Actions  which  he  ascribes  to  Sin  and  Death,  and  the  Picture 
which  he  draws  of  the  Lymbo  of  Vanity,  with  other  Passages  in 


324  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

the  second  Book.  Such  Allegories  rather  savour  of  the  Spirit  of 
Spencer  and  Ariosto,  than  of  Homer  and  Virgil. 

In  the  Structure  of  his  Poem  he  has  likewise  admitted  of  too 
many  Digressions.  It  is  finely  observed  by  Aristotle,  that  the 
Author  of  an  Historic  Poem  should  seldom  speak  himself,  but 
throw  as  much  of  his  Work  as  he  can  into  the  Mouths  of  those 
who  are  his  Principal  Actors.  Aristotle  has  given  no  Reason  for 
this  Precept ;  but  I  presume  it  is  because  the  Mind  of  the  Reader 
is  more  awed  and  elevated  when  he  hears  ^neas  or  Achilles 
speak,  than  when  Virgil  or  Homer  talk  in  their  own  Persons. 
Besides  that  assuming  the  Character  of  an  eminent  Man  is  apt  to 
fire  the  Imagination,  and  raise  the  Ideas  of  the  Author.  Tulfy 
tells  us,  mentioning  his  Dialogue  of  Old  Age,  in  which  Cato  is  the 
chief  Speaker,  that  upon  a  Review  of  it  he  was  agreeably  im- 
posed upon,  and  fancied  that  it  was  Cato,  and  not  he  himself, 
who  utter'd  his  Thoughts  on  that  Subject. 

If  the  Reader  would  be  at  the  pains  to  see  how  the  Story  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  sEneid  is  delivered  by  those  Persons  who  act  in  it, 
he  will  be  surprized  to  find  how  little  in  either  of  these  Poems 
proceeds  from  the  Authors.  Milton  has,  in  the  general  dispo- 
sition of  his  Fable,  very  finely  observed  this  great  Rule ;  inso- 
much that  there  is  scarce  a  third  part  of  it  which  comes  from  the 
Poet ;  the  rest  is  spoken  either  by  Adam  and  Eve,  or  by  some 
Good  or  Evil  Spirit  who  is  engaged  either  in  their  Destruction  or 
Defence. 

From  what  has  been  here  observed  it  appears,  that  Digressions 
are  by  no  means  to  be  allowed  of  in  an  Epic  Poem.  If  the  Poet, 
even  in  the  ordinary  course  of  his  Narration,  should  speak  as  little 
as  possible,  he  should  certainly  never  let  his  Narration  sleep  for 
the  sake  of  any  Reflections  of  his  own.  I  have  often  observed, 
with  a  secret  Admiration,  that  the  longest  Reflection  in  the  sEneid 
is  in  that  Passage  of  the  Tenth  Book,  where  Turnus  is  represent 
[ed]  as  dressing  himself  in  the  Spoils  of  Pallas,  whom  he  had 
Slain.  Virgil  here  lets  his  Fable  stand  still  for  the  sake  of  the  fol- 
lowing Remark.  How  is  the  Mind  of  Man  ignorant  of  -Futurity, 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  325 

and  unable  to  bear  prosperous  Fortune  with  Moderation  ?  The 
time  will  come  when  Turnus  shall  wish  that  he  had  left  the  Body 
of  Pallas  untouched,  and  curse  the  Day  on  which  he  dressed  him- 
self in  these  Spoils.1  As  the  great  Event  of  the  dEneid,  and  the 
Death  of  Turnus,  whom  sEneas  slew  because  he  saw  him  adorned 
with  the  Spoils  of  Pallas,  turns  upon  this  Incident,  Virgil  went  out 
of  his  way  to  make  this  Reflection  upon  it,  without  which  so  small 
a  Circumstance  might  possibly  have  slipped  out  of  his  Reader's 
Memory.  Lucan,  who  was  an  Injudicious  Poet,  lets  drop  his 
Story  very  frequently  for  the  sake  of  [his]  unnecessary  Digressions, 
or  his  Diverticula,  as  Scaliger  calls  them.  If  he  gives  us  an 
Account  of  the  Prodigies  which  preceded  the  Civil  War,  he  de- 
claims upon  the  Occasion,  and  shews  how  much  happier  it  would 
be  for  Man,  if  he  did  not  feel  his  Evil  Fortune  before  it  comes  to 
pass,  and  surfer  not  only  by  its  real  Weight,  but  by  the  Apprehen- 
sion of  it.  Milton'1-,  Complaint  of  his  Blindness,  his  Panegyrick 
on  Marriage,  his  Reflections  on  Adam  and  Eve's  going  naked,  of 
the  Angels  eating,  and  several  other  Passages  in  his  Poem,  are 
liable  to  the  same  Exception,  tho'  I  must  confess  there  is  so  great 
a  Beauty  in  these  very  Digressions,  that  I  would  not  wish  them 
out  of  his  Poem. 

I  have,  in  a  former  Paper,  spoken  of  the  Characters  of  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost,  and  declared  my  Opinion  as  to  the  Allegorical 
Persons  who  are  introduced  in  it. 

If  we  look  into  the  Sentiments,  I  think  they  are  sometimes 
defective  under  the  following  Heads ;  First,  as  there  are  some 
[several]  of  them  too  much  pointed,  and  some  that  degenerate 
even  into  Puns.  Of  this  last  kind  I  am  afraid  is  that  in  the  First 
Book,  where,  speaking  of  the  Pigmies,  he  calls  them 

.     .     .     The  small  Infantry 
Warr*d on  by  Cranes.     .     .     . 

Another  Blemish  that  appears  in  some  of  his  Thoughts,  is  his 
frequent  Allusions  to  Heathen  Fables,  which  are  not  certainly  of 

7  VIRGIL,  sEneid,  X.  501-5. 


326  JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

a  Piece  with  the  Divine  Subject  of  which  he  treats.  I  do  not 
find  fault  with  these  Allusions,  where  the  Poet  himself  represents 
them  as  fabulous,  as  he  does  in  some  Places,  but  where  he  men- 
tions them  as  Truths  and  Matters  of  Fact.  The  Limits  of  my 
Paper  will  not  give  me  leave  to  be  particular  in  Instances  of  this 
kind :  The  Reader  will  easily  remark  them  in  his  Perusal  of  the 
Poem. 

A  Third  Fault  in  his  Sentiments,  is  an  unnecessary  Ostentation 
of  Learning,  which  likewise  occurs  very  frequently.  It  is  certain 
that  both  Homer  and  Virgil  were  Masters  of  all  the  Learning  of 
their  Times,  but  it  shews  it  self  in  their  Works  after  an  indirect 
and  concealed  manner.  Milton  seems  ambitious  of  letting  us 
know,  by  his  Excursions  on  Free-will  and  Predestination,  and 
his  many  Glances  upon  History,  Astronomy,  Geography  and  the 
like,  as  well  as  by  the  Terms  and  Phrases  he  sometimes  makes 
use  of,  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  whole  Circle  of  Arts  and 
Sciences. 

If,  in  the  last  place,  we  consider  the  Language  of  this  great 
Poet,  we  must  allow  what  I  have  hinted  in  a  former  Paper,  that  it 
is  [often]  too  much  laboured,  and  sometimes  obscured  by  old 
Words,  Transpositions,  and  Foreign  Idioms.  Seneca'?,  Objection 
to  the  Stile  of  a  great  Author,  Riget  ejus  oratio,  nihil  in  ed  placi- 
dum,  nihil  lene, 8  is  what  many  Criticks  make  to  Milton :  as  I 
cannot  wholly  refute  it,  so  I  have  already  apologized  for  it  in 
another  Paper ;  to  which  I  may  further  add,  that  Milton'1'**  Senti- 
ments and  Ideas  were  so  wonderfully  Sublime,  that  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  him  to  have  represented  them  in  their  full 
Strength  and  Beauty,  without  having  recourse  to  these  Foreign 
Assistances.  Our  Language  sunk  under  him,  and  was  unequal  to 
that  greatness  of  Soul,  which  furnished  him  with  such  glorious 
Conceptions. 

A  second  Fault  in  his  Language  is,  that  he  often  affects  a  kind 
of  Jingle  in  his  Words,  as  in  the  following  Passages,  and  many 
others  : 

8  His  language  is  stiff ;  there  is  nothing  in  it  smooth,  nothing  gentle.  —  SENECA. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  327 

And  brought  into  the  World  a  World  of  woe. 

.     .     .     Begirt  ttt  Almighty  Throne 

Beseeching  or  besieging     .     .     . 

This  tempted  our  attempt     .     .     . 

At  one  Slight  bound  high  overleapt  all  bound. 

I  know  there  are  Figures  of  this  kind  of  Speech,  that  some  of 
the  greatest  Ancients  have  been  guilty  of  it,  and  that  Aristotle 
himself  has  given  it  a  place  in  his  Rhetorick  among  the  Beauties 
of  that  Art.  But  as  it  is  in  itself  poor  and  trifling,  it  is  I  think  at 
present  universally  exploded  by  all  the  Masters  of  polite  Writing. 

The  last  Fault  which  I  shall  take  notice  of  in  Milton'':,  Stile,  is 
the  frequent  use  of  what  the  Learned  call  Technical  Words,  or 
Terms  of  Art.  It  is  one  of  the  great  Beauties  of  Poetry,  to  make 
hard  things  intelligible,  and  to  deliver  what  is  abstruse  of  it  self  in 
such  easy  Language  as  may  be  understood  by  ordinary  Readers  : 
Besides  that  the  Knowledge  of  a  Poet  should  rather  seem  born 
with  him,  or  inspired,  than  drawn  from  Books  and  Systems.  I 
have  often  wondered  how  Mr.  Dryden  could  translate  a  Passage  of 
Virgil  after  the  following  manner  : 

Tack  to  the  Larboard,  and  stand  off  to  Sea, 
Veer  Star-board,  Sea  and  Land.     .     .     . 

Milton  makes  use  of  Larboard  in  the  same  manner.  When  he 
is  upon  Building  he  mentions  Doric  Pillars,  Pilasters,  Cornice, 
Freeze,  Architrave.  When  he  talks  of  Heavenly  Bodies,  you 
meet  with  Eccliptick,  and  Eccentric,  the  trepidation,  Stars  drop- 
ping from  the  Zenith,  Rays  culminating  from  the  Equator.  To 
which  might  be  added  many  Instances  of  the  like  kind  in  several 
other  Arts  and  Sciences. 

I  shall  in  my  next  Satur day's  *  Paper  [Papers]  give  an  Account 
of  the  many  particular  Beauties  in  Milton,  which  would  have  been 
too  long  to  insert  under  those  general  Heads  I  have  already 
treated  of,  and  with  which  I  intend  to  conclude  this  Piece  of 
Criticism. 


XVI. 

SIR    RICHARD  STEELE. 

(1675-1729.) 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR. 
i.  THE  COVERLEY  PAPERS. 

[Written  in  1711-12.] 
No.  2.  FRIDAY,  March  2,  1711. 

THE  first  of  our  society  is  a  gentleman  of  Worcestershire,  of  an 
ancient  descent,  a  baronet,  his  name  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.  His 
great  -  grand-father  was  inventor  of  that  famous  country-dance 
which  is  called  after  him.  All  who  know  that  shire  are  very  well 
acquainted  with  the  parts  and  merits  of  Sir  Roger.  He  is  a  gen- 
tleman that  is  very  singular  in  his  behaviour,  but  his  singularities 
proceed  from  his  good  sense,  and  are  contradictions  to  the  man- 
ners of  the  world,  only  as  he  thinks  the  world  is  in  the  wrong. 
However,  this  humour  creates  him  no  enemies,  for  he  does  nothing 
with  sourness  or  obstinacy ;  and  his  being  unconfined  to  modes 
and  forms,  makes  him  but  the  readier  and  more  capable  to  please 
and  oblige  all  who  know  him.  When  he  is  in  town,  he  lives  in 
Soho-square.  It  is  said,  he  keeps  himself  a  bachelor  by  reason  he 
was  crossed  in  love  by  a  perverse  beautiful  widow  of  the  next 
county  to  him.  Before  this  disappointment,  Sir  Roger  was  what 
you  call  a  fine  gentleman,  had  often  supped  with  my  Lord 
Rochester  and  Sir  George  Etherege,  fought  a  duel  upon  his  first 
coming  to  town,  and  kicked  bully  Dawson1  in  a  public  coffee- 
house for  calling  him  youngster.  But  being  ill-used  by  the  above- 
mentioned  widow,  he  was  very  serious  for  a  year  and  a  half;  and, 

1  "A  noted  sharper,  swaggerer,  and  debauchee  about  town."  —  CHALMERS. 
328 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  329 

though,  his  temper  being  naturally  jovial,  he  at  last  got  over  it,  he 
grew  careless  of  himself,  and  never  dressed  afterwards.  He  con- 
tinues to  wear  a  coat  and  doublet  of  the  same  cut  that  were  in 
fashion  at  the  time  of  his  repulse,  which,  in  his  merry  humours,  he 
tells  us,  has  been  in  and  out  twelve  times  since  he  first  wore  it. 
He  is  now  in  his  fifty-sixth  year,  cheerful,  gay,  and  hearty ;  keeps 
a  good  house  both  in  town  and  country ;  a  great  lover  of  man- 
kind ;  but  there  is  such  a  mirthful  cast  in  his  behaviour  that  he  is 
rather  beloved  than  esteemed. 

His  tenants  grow  rich,  his  servants  look  satisfied,  all  the  young 
women  profess  love  to  him,  and  the  young  men  are  glad  of  his 
company.  When  he  comes  into  a  house  he  calls  the  servants  by 
their  names,  and  talks  all  the  way  up  stairs  to  a  visit.  I  must  not 
omit  that  Sir  Roger  is  a  justice  of  the  quorum ;  that  he  fills  the 
chair  at  a  quarter-session  with  great  abilities,  and  three  months 
ago  gained  universal  applause  by  explaining  a  passage  in  the 
game-act. 

The  gentleman  next  in  esteem  and  authority  among  us  is  an- 
other bachelor,  who  is  a  member  of  the  Inner  Temple,  a  man  of 
great  probity,  wit,  and  understanding ;  but  he  has  chosen  his 
place  of  residence  rather  to  obey  the  direction  of  an  old  humour- 
some  father  than  in  pursuit  of  his  own  inclinations.  He  was 
placed  there  to  study  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  is  the  most 
learned  of  any  of  the  house  in  those  of  the  stage.  Aristotle  and 
Longinus  are  much  better  understood  by  him  than  Littleton  or 
Coke.  The  father  sends  up  every  post  questions  relating  to  mar- 
riage articles,  leases  and  tenures,  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  all  which 
questions  he  agrees  with  an  attorney  to  answer  and  take  care  of 
in  the  lump.  He  is  studying  the  passions  themselves  when  he 
should  be  inquiring  into  the  debates  among  men  which  arise  from 
them.  He  knows  the  argument  of  each  of  the  orations  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Tully,  but  not  one  case  in  the  reports  of  our  own 
courts.  No  one  ever  took  him  for  a  fool ;  but  none,  except  his 
intimate  friends,  know  he  has  a  great  deal  of  wit.  This  turn 
makes  him  at  once  both  disinterested  and  agreeable.  As  few  of 


330  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

his  thoughts  are  drawn  from  business,  they  are  most  of  them  fit  for 
conversation.  His  taste  for  books  is  a  little  too  just  for  the  age 
he  lives  in  ;  he  has  read  all  but  approves  of  very  few.  His  famil- 
iarity with  the  customs,  manners,  actions,  and  writings  of  the 
ancients,  makes  him  a  very  delicate  observer  of  what  occurs  to 
him  in  the  present  world.  He  is  an  excellent  critic,  and  the 
time  of  the  play  is  his  hour  of  business ;  exactly  at  five  he  passes 
through  New  Inn,  crosses  through  Russelcourt,  and  takes  a  turn 
at  Will's  till  the  play  begins ;  he  has  his  shoes  rubbed  and  his 
periwig  powdered  at  the  barber's  as  you  go  into  the  Rose.  It  is 
for  the  good  of  the  audience  when  he  is  at  a  play,  for  the  actors 
have  an  ambition  to  please  him. 

The  person  of  next  consideration  is  Sir  Andrew  Freeport,  a 
merchant  of  great  eminence  in  the  city  of  London.  A  person  of 
indefatigable  industry,  strong  reason,  and  great  experience.  His 
notions  of  trade  are  noble  and  generous,  and,  as  every  rich  man 
has  usually  some  sly  way  of  jesting,  which  would  make  no  great 
figure  were  he  not  a  rich  man,  he  calls  the  sea  the  British  Com- 
mon. He  is  acquainted  with  commerce  in  all  its  parts,  and  will 
tell  you  that  it  is  a  stupid  and  barbarous  way  to  extend  dominion 
by  arms  ;  for  true  power  is  to  be  got  by  arts  and  industry.  He  will 
often  argue,  that,  if  this  part  of  our  trade  were  well  cultivated,  we 
should  gain  from  one  nation ;  and  if  another,  from  another.  I 
have  heard  him  prove  that  diligence  makes  more  lasting  acquisi- 
tions than  valour,  and  that  sloth  has  ruined  more  nations  than  the 
sword.  He  abounds  in  several  frugal  maxims,  amongst  which 
the  greatest  favourite  is,  'A  penny  saved  is  a  penny  got.'  A 
general  trader  of  good  sense  is  pleasanter  company  than  a 
general  scholar;  and  Sir  Andrew  having  a  natural  unaffected 
eloquence,  the  perspicuity  of  his  discourse  gives  the  same  pleas- 
ure that  wit  would  in  another  man.  He  has  made  his  fortunes 
himself,  and  says  that  England  may  be  richer  than  other  king- 
doms, by  as  plain  methods  as  he  himself  is  richer  than  other  men ; 
though  at  the  same  time  I  can  say  this  of  him,  that  there  is  not 
a  point  in  the  compass,  but  blows  home  a  ship  in  which  he  is  an 
owner. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  331 

Next  to  Sir  Andrew  in  the  club-room  sits  Captain  Sentry,  a 
gentleman  of  great  courage,  and  understanding,  but  invincible 
modesty.  He  is  one  of  those  that  deserve  very  well,  but  are 
very  awkward  at  putting  their  talents  within  the  observation  of  such 
as  should  take  notice  of  them.  He  was  some  years  a  captain,  and 
behaved  himself  with  great  gallantry  in  several  engagements  and 
at  several  sieges ;  but  having  a  small  estate  of  his  own,  and  being 
next  heir  to  Sir  Roger,  he  has  quitted  a  way  of  life  in  which  no 
man  can  rise  suitably  to  his  merit,  who  is  not  something  of  a 
courtier  as  well  as  a  soldier.  I  have  heard  him  often  lament  that 
in  a  profession  where  merit  is  placed  in  so  conspicuous  a  view, 
impudence  should  get  the  better  of  modesty.  When  he  has 
talked  to  this  purpose,  I  never  heard  him  make  a  sour  expression, 
but  frankly  confess  that  he  left  the  world  because  he  was  not  fit 
for  it.  A  strict  honesty  and  an  even  regular  behaviour,  are  in  themj- 
selves  obstacles  to  him  that  must  press  through  crowds,  who  en- 
deavour at  the  same  end  with  himself,  the  favour  of  the  commander. 
He  will,  however,  in  his  way  of  talk,  excuse  generals  for  not  dis- 
posing according  to  men's  desert,  or  inquiring  into  it ;  for,  says  he, 
that  great  man  who  has  a  mind  to  help  me,  has  as  many  to  break 
through  to  come  at  me  as  I  have  to  come  at  him  :  therefore  he 
will  conclude  that  the  man  who  would  make  a  figure,  especially  in 
a  military  way,  must  get  over  all  false  modesty,  and  assist  his  patron 
against  the  importunity  of  other  pretenders,  by  a  proper  assurance 
in  his  own  vindication.  He  says  it  is  a  civil  cowardice  to  be  back- 
ward in  asserting  what  you  ought  to  expect,  as  it  is  a  military  fear 
to  be  slow  in  attacking  when  it  is  your  duty.  With  this  candour 
does  the  gentleman  speak  of  himself  and  others.  The  same 
frankness  runs  through  all  his  conversation.  The  military  part  of 
his  life  has  furnished  him  with  many  adventures,  in  the  relation  of 
which  he  is  very  agreeable  to  the  company ;  for  he  is  never  over- 
bearing, though  accustomed  to  command  men  in  the  utmost 
degree  below  him,  nor  ever  too  obsequious,  from  a  habit  of  obey- 
ing men  highly  above  him. 

But  that  our  society  may  not  appear  a  set  of  humourists,  unac- 


332  SIR  RICHARD   STEELE. 

quainted  with  the  gallantries  and  pleasures  of  the  age,  we  have 
amongst  us  the  gallant  Will  Honeycomb,  a  gentleman  who, 
according  to  his  years,  should  be  in  the  decline  of  his  life,  but 
having  ever  been  very  careful  of  his  person,  and  always  had  a  very 
easy  fortune,  time  has  made  but  very  little  impression,  either  by 
wrinkles  on  his  forehead,  or  traces  in  his  brain.  His  person  is 
well  turned,  of  a  good  height.  He  is  very  ready  at  that  sort  of 
discourse  with  which  men  usually  entertain  women.  He  has  all 
his  life  dressed  very  well,  and  remembers  habits  as  others  do  men. 
He  can  smile  when  one  speaks  to  him,  and  laughs  easily.  He  knows 
the  history  of  every  mode,  and  can  inform  you  from  which  of  the 
French  king's  wenches  our  wives  and  daughters  had  this  manner 
of  curling  their  hair,  that  way  of  placing  their  hoods ;  .  .  .  and 
whose  vanity  to  show  her  foot  made  that  part  of  the  dress  so  short 
in  such  a  year.  In  a  word,  all  his  conversation  and  knowledge  has 
been  in  the  female  world.  As  other  men  of  his  age  will  take  notice 
to  you  what  such  a  minister  said  upon  such  and  such  an  occasion, 
he  will  tell  you,  when  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  danced  at  court, 
such  a  woman  was  then  smitten,  another  was  taken  with  him  at  the 
head  of  his  troop  in  the  Park.  In  all  these  important  relations,  he 
has  ever  about  the  same  time  received  a  kind  glance,  or  a  blow  of 
a  fan  from  some  celebrated  beauty,  mother  of  the  present  Lord 
Such-a-one.  If  you  speak  of  a  young  commoner  that  said  a 
lively  thing  in  the  house,  he  starts  up,  '  He  has  good  blood  in  his 
veins,  .  .  .  that  young  fellow's  mother  used  me  more  like  a  dog  than 
any  woman  I  ever  made  advances  to.'  This  way  of  talking  of  his, 
very  much  enlivens  the  conversation  among  us  of  a  more  sedate 
turn ;  and  I  find  there  is  not  one  of  the  company,  but  myself,  who 
rarely  speak  at  all,  but  speaks  of  him  as  of  that  sort  of  man,  who 
is  usually  called  a  well-bred  fine  gentleman.  To  conclude  his 
character,  where  women  are  not  concerned,  he  is  an  honest  worthy 
man. 

I  cannot  tell  whether  I  am  to  account  him  whom  I  am  next  to 
speak  of,  as  one  of  our  company ;  for  he  visits  us  but  seldom,  but 
when  he  does,  it  adds  to  every  man  else  a  new  enjoyment  of  him- 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  333 

self.  He  is  a  clergyman,  a  very  philosophic  man,  of  general 
learning,  great  sanctity  of  life,  and  the  most  exact  good  breeding. 
He  has  the  misfortune  to  be  of  a  very  weak  constitution,  and  con- 
sequently cannot  accept  of  such  cares  and  business  as  preferments 
in  his  function  would  oblige  him  to ;  he  is  therefore  among  divines 
what  a  chamber-counsellor  is  among  lawyers.  The  probity  of  his 
mind,  and  the  integrity  of  his  life,  create  him  followers,  as  being 
eloquent  or  loud  advances  others.  He  seldom  introduces  the 
subject  he  speaks  upon ;  but  we  are  so  far  gone  in  years,  that  he 
observes,  when  he  is  among  us,  an  earnestness  to  have  him  fall  on 
some  divine  topic  which  he  always  treats  with  much  authority,  as 
one  who  has  no  interest  in  this  world,  as  one  who  is  hastening  to 
the  object  of  all  his  wishes,  and  conceives  hope  from  his  decays 
and  infirmities.  These  are  my  ordinary  companions. 

No.  1O7.  TUESDAY,  July  3, 1711. 

The  reception,  manner  of  attendance,  undisturbed  freedom  and 
quiet,  which  I  meet  with  here  in  the  country,  has  confirmed  me 
in  the  opinion  I  always  had,  that  the  general  corruption  of  man- 
ners in  servants  is  owing  to  the  conduct  of  masters.  The  aspect 
of  every  one  in  the  family  carries  so  much  satisfaction,  that  it 
appears  he  knows  the  happy  lot  which  has  befallen  him  in  being  a 
member  of  it.  There  is  one  particular  which  I  have  seldom  seen 
but  at  Sir  Roger's ;  it  is  usual,  in  all  other  places,  that  servants 
fly  from  the  parts  of  the  house  through  which  their  master  is  pass- 
ing; on  the  contrary,  here  they  industriously  place  themselves  in 
his  way  :  and  it  is  on  both  sides,  as  it  were,  understood  as  a  visit, 
when  the  servants  appear  without  calling.  This  proceeds  from 
the  humane  and  equal  temper  of  the  man  of  the  house,  who  also 
perfectly  well  knows  how  to  enjoy  a  great  estate  with  such  econ- 
omy as  ever  to  be  much  beforehand.  This  makes  his  own  mind 
untroubled,  and  consequently  unapt  to  vent  peevish  expressions, 
or  give  passionate  or  inconsistent  orders  to  those  about  him. 
Thus  respect  and  love  go  together ;  and  a  certain  cheerfulness  in 
performance  of  their  duty  is  the  particular  distinction  of  this  lower 


334  SSX  RICHARD   STEELE. 

part  of  this  family.  When  a  servant  is  called  before  his  master, 
he  does  not  come  with  an  expectation  to  hear  himself  rated  for 
some  trivial  fault,  threatened  to  be  stripped,  or  used  with  any 
other  unbecoming  language,  which  mean  masters  often  give  to 
worthy  servants ;  but  it  is  often  to  know  what  road  he  took  that 
he  came  so  readily  back  according  to  order ;  whether  he  passed 
by  such  a  ground ;  if  the  old  man  who  rents  it  is  in  good  health ; 
or  whether  he  gave  Sir  Roger's  love  to  him,  or  the  like. 

A  man  who  preserves  a  respect  founded  on  his  benevolence 
to  his  dependents,  lives  rather  like  a  prince  than  a  master  in  his 
family ;  his  orders  are  received  as  favours  rather  than  duties,  and 
the  distinction  of  approaching  him  is  part  of  the  reward  for  exe- 
cuting what  is  commanded  by  him. 

There  is  another  circumstance  in  which  my  friend  excels  in  his 
management,  which  is  the  manner  of  rewarding  his  servants. 
He  has  ever  been  of  opinion  that  giving  his  cast  clothes  to  be 
worn  by  valets  has  a  very  ill  effect  upon  little  minds,  and  creates 
a  silly  sense  of  equality  between  the  parties,  in  persons  affected 
only  with  outward  things.  I  have  heard  him  often  pleasant  on 
this  occasion,  and  describe  a  young  gentleman  abusing  his  man 
in  that  coat,  which  a  month  or  two  before  was  the  most  pleasing 
distinction  he  was  conscious  of  in  himself.  He  would  turn  his 
discourse  still  more  pleasantly  upon  the  ladies'  bounties  in  this 
kind,  and  I  have  heard  him  say  he  knew  a  fine  woman  who  dis- 
tributed rewards  and  punishments  in  giving  becoming  or  unbe- 
coming dresses  to  her  maids. 

But  my  good  friend  is  above  these  little  instances  of  good-will 
in  bestowing  only  trifles  on  his  servants ;  a  good  servant  to  him  is 
sure  of  having  it  in  his  choice  very  soon  of  being  no  servant  at 
all.  As  I  before  observed,  he  is  so  good  a  husband,  and  knows 
so  thoroughly  that  the  skill  of  the  purse  is  the  cardinal  virtue  of 
this  life ;  I  say  he  knows  so  well  that  frugality  is  the  support  of 
generosity,  that  he  can  often  spare  a  large  fine  when  a  tenement 
falls,  and  give  that  settlement  to  a  good  servant  who  has  a  mind 
to  go  into  the  world,  or  make  a  stranger  pay  the  fine  to  that 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  335 

servant,  for  his  more  comfortable  maintenance,  if  he  stays  in  his 
service. 

A  man  of  honour  and  generosity  considers  it  would  be  miserable 
to  himself  to  have  no  will  but  that  of  another,  though  it  were  of 
the  best  person  breathing,  and  for  that  reason  goes  on  as  fast  as 
he  is  able  to  put  his  servants  into  independent  livelihoods.  The 
greatest  part  of  Sir  Roger's  estate  is  tenanted  by  persons  who 
have  served  himself  or  his  ancestors.  It  was  to  me  extremely 
pleasant  to  observe  the  visitants  from  several  parts  to  welcome  his 
arrival  into  the  country  :  and  all  the  difference  that  I  could  take 
notice  of  between  the  late  servants  who  came  to  see  him,  and 
those  who  staid  in  the  family,  was  that  these  latter  were  looked 
upon  as  fine  gentlemen  and  better  courtiers. 

This  manumission  and  placing  them  in  a  way  of  livelihood,  I 
look  upon  as  only  what  is  due  to  a  good  servant,  which  encourage- 
ment will  make  his  successor  be  as  diligent,  as  humble,  and  as 
ready  as  he  was.  There  is  something  wonderful  in  the  narrow- 
ness of  those  minds  which  can  be  pleased,  and  be  barren  of 
bounty  to  those  who  please  them. 

One  might  on  this  occasion  recount  the  sense  that  great  persons 
in  all  ages  have  had  of  the  merit  of  their  dependents,  and  the 
heroic  services  which  men  have  done  their  masters  in  the  ex- 
tremity of  their  fortunes,  and  shown  to  their  undone  patrons .  that 
fortune  was  all  the  difference  between  them ;  but  as  I  design  this 
my  speculation  only  as  a  gentle  admonition  to  thankless  masters, 
I  shall  not  go  out  of  the  occurrences  of  common  life,  but  assert  it 
as  a  general  observation,  that  I  never  saw,  but  in  Sir  Roger's 
family  and  one  or  two  more,  good  servants  treated  as  they  ought 
to  be.  Sir  Roger's  kindness  extends  to  their  children's  children, 
and  this  very  morning  he  sent  his  coachman's  grandson  to  pren- 
tice. I  shall  conclude  this  paper  with  an  account  of  a  picture  in 
his  gallery,  where  there  are  many  which  will  deserve  my  future 
observation. 

At  the  very  upper  end  of  this  handsome  structure  I  saw  the 
portraiture  of  two  young  men  standing  in  a  river ;  the  one  naked, 


336  SIR  RICHARD   STEELE. 

the  other  in  a  livery.  The  person  supported  seemed  half  dead, 
but  still  so  much  alive,  as  to  show  in  his  face  exquisite  joy  and 
love  towards  the  other.  I  thought  the  fainting  figure  resembled 
my  friend  Sir  Roger ;  and  looking  at  the  butler  who  stood  by  me, 
for  an  account  of  it,  he  informed  me  that  the  person  in  the  livery 
was  a  servant  of  Sir  Roger's  who  stood  on  the  shore  while  his 
master  was  swimming,  and  observing  him  taken  with  some  sudden 
illness,  and  sink  under  water,  jumped  in  and  saved  him.  He  told 
me  Sir  Roger. took  off  the  dress  he  was  in  as  soon  as  he  came 
home,  and  by  a  great  bounty  at  that  time,  followed  by  his  favour 
ever  since,  had  made  him  master  of  that  pretty  seat  which  we  saw 
at  a  distance  as  we  came  to  this  house.  I  remembered  indeed 
Sir  Roger  said  there  lived  a  very  worthy  gentleman,  to  whom  he 
was  highly  obliged,  without-  mentioning  anything  further.  Upon 
my  looking  a  little  dissatisfied  at  some  part  of  the  picture,  my 
attendant  informed  me  that  it  was  against  Sir  Roger's  will,  and  at 
the  earnest  request  of  the  gentleman  himself,  that  he  was  drawn  in 
the  habit  in  which  he  had  saved  his  master. 

No.  1O9.  THURSDAY,  July  5,  1711. 

I  was  this  morning  walking  in  the  gallery,  when  Sir  Roger  en- 
tered at  the  end  opposite  to  me,  and  advancing  towards  me,  said 
he  was  glad  to  meet  me  among  his  relations  the  De  Coverleys, 
and  hoped  I  liked  the  conversation  of  so  much  good  company, 
who  were  as  silent  as  myself.  I  knew  he  alluded  to  the  pictures,  and 
as  he  is  a  gentleman  who  does  not  a  little  value  himself  upon  his 
ancient  descent,  I  expected  he  would  give  me  some  account  of 
them.  We  were  now  arrived  at  the  upper  end  of  the  gallery, 
when  the  knight  faced  towards  one  of  the  pictures,  and  as  we 
stood  before  it,  he  entered  into  the  matter,  after  his  blunt  way  of 
saying  things  as  they  occur  to  his  imagination,  without  regular  in- 
troduction, or  care  to  preserve  the  appearance  of  chain  of  thought. 

'  It  is,'  said  he,  '  worth  while  to  consider  the  force  of  dress  ;  and 
how  the  persons  of  one  age  differ  from  those  of  another ;  merely 
by  that  only.  One  may  observe  also  that  the  general  fashion  of 


SELECTIONS  FROM    THE  SPECTATOR.  337 

one  age  has  been  followed  by  one  particular  set  of  people  in 
another,  and  by  them  preserved  from  one  generation  to  another. 
Thus  the  vast  jetting  coat  and  small  bonnet,  which  was  the  habit 
in  Henry  the  Seventh's  time,  is  kept  on  in  the  yeomen  of  the 
guard,  not  without  a  good  and  politic  view,  because  they  look  a 
foot  taller,  and  a  foot  and  a  half  broader :  besides  that  the  cap 
leaves  the  face  expanded,  and  consequently  more  terrible,  and 
fitter  to  stand  at  the  entrance  of  palaces. 

*  This  predecessor  of  ours  you  see  is  dressed  after  this  manner, 
and  his  cheeks  would  be  no  larger  than  mine  were  he  in  a  hat  as  I 
am.  He  was  the  last  man  that  won  a  prize  in  the  Tilt-yard, 
which  is  now  a  common  street  before  Whitehall.  You  see  the 
broken  lance  that  lies  there  by  his  right  foot.  He  shivered  that 
lance  of  his  adversary  all  to  pieces ;  and  bearing  himself,  look 
you,  sir,  in  this  manner,  at  the  same  time  he  came  within  the 
target  of  the  gentleman  who  rode  against  him,  and  taking  him 
with  incredible  force  before  him  on  the  pommel  of  his  saddle, 
he  in  that  manner  rid  the  tournament  over  with  an  air  that  showed 
he  did  it  rather  to  perform  the  rule  of  the  lists,  than  expose  his 
enemy ;  however  it  appeared  he  knew  how  to  make  use  of  a 
victory,  and  with  a  gentle  trot  he  marched  up  to  a  gallery  where 
their  mistress  sat,  for  they  were  rivals,  and  let  him  down  with 
laudable  courtesy  and  pardonable  insolence.  I  don't  know  but 
it  might  be  exactly  where  the  coffee-house  is  now. 

'  You  are  to  know  this  my  ancestor  was  not  only  of  a  military 
genius,  but  fit  also  for  the  arts  of  peace,  for  he  played  on  the  bass- 
viol  as  well  as  any  gentleman  at  court ;  you  see  where  his  viol 
hangs  by  his  basket-hilt  sword.  The  action  at  the  Tilt-yard  you 
may  be  sure  won  the  fair  lady,  who  was  a  maid  of  honour,  and 
the  greatest  beauty  of  her  time ;  here  she  stands  the  next  pic- 
ture. You  see,  Sir,  my  great-great-great-grandmother  has  on 
the  new-fashioned  petticoat,  except  that  the  modern  is  gathered 
at  the  waist ;  my  grandmother  appears  as  if  she  stood  in  a  large 
drum,  whereas  the  ladies  now  walk  as  if  they  were  in  a  go-cart. 
For  all  this  lady  was  bred  at  court,  she  became  an  excellent 


338  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

country  wife,  she  brought  ten  children  ;  and  when  I  show  you  the 
library,  you  shall  see  in  her  own  hand,  allowing  for  the  difference 
of  the  language,  the  best  receipt  now  in  England  both  for  a  hasty- 
pudding  and  a  white-pot. 2 

'  If  you  please  to  fall  back  a  little,  because  it  is  necessary  to 
look  at  the  three  next  pictures  at  one  view;  these  are  three 
sisters.  She  on  the  right  hand  who  is  so  very  beautiful,  died  a 
maid ;  the  next  to  her,  still  handsomer,  had  the  same  fate,  against 
her  will ;  this  homely  thing  in  the  middle  had  both  their  portions 
added  to  her  own,  and  was  stolen  by  a  neighbouring  gentleman, 
a  man  of  stratagem  and  resolution,  for  he  poisoned  three  mastiffs 
to  come  at  her,  and  knocked  down  two  deer-stealers  in  carrying  her 
off.  Misfortunes  happen  in  all  families.  The  theft  of  this  romp, 
and  so  much  money,  was  no  great  matter  to  our  estate.  But  the 
next  heir  that  possessed  it  was  this  soft  gentleman,  whom  you  see 
there.  Observe  the  small  buttons,  the  little  boots,  the  laces,  the 
slashes  about  his  clothes,  and  above  all  the  posture  he  is  drawn  in, 
which  to  be  sure  was  his  choosing ;  you  see  he  sits  with  one  hand 
on  a  desk  writing  and  looking  as  it  were  another  way,  like  an  easy 
writer,  or  a  sonneteer.  He  was  one  of  those  that  had  too  much 
wit  to  know  how  to  live  in  the  world  ;  he  was  a  man  of  no  justice, 
but  great  good-manners ;  he  ruined  everybody  that  had  anything 
to  do  with  him,  but  never  said  a  rude  thing  in  his  life  ;  the  most 
indolent  person  in  the  world,  he  would  sign  a  deed  that  passed 
away  half  his  estate  with  his  gloves  on,  but  would  not  put  on  his 
hat  before  a  lady  if  it  were  to  save  his  country.  He  is  said  to  be 
the  first  that  made  love  by  squeezing  the  hand.  He  left  the  estate 
with  ten  thousand  pounds  debt  upon  it ;  but  however,  by  all  hands, 
I  have  been  informed  that  he  was  every  way  the  finest  gentleman 
in  the  world.  That  debt  lay  heavy  on  our  house  for  one  gen- 
eration, but  it  was  retrieved  by  a  gift  from  that  honest  man  you 
see  there,  a  citizen  of  our  name,  but  nothing  at  all  akin  to  us.  I 
know  Sir  Andrew  Freeport  has  said  behind  my  back,  that  this 
man  was  descended  from  one  of  the  ten  children  of  the  maid  of 

2  Defined  as  a  kind  of  cake  baked  in  a  pot. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  339 

honour  T  showed  you  above ;  but  it  was  never  made  out.  We 
winked  at  the  thing  indeed,  because  money  was  wanting  at  that 
time.'  Here  I  saw  my  friend  a  little  embarrassed,  and  turned  my 
face  to  the  next  portraiture. 

Sir  Roger  went  on  with  his  account  of  the  gallery  in  the  follow- 
ing manner :  '  This  man,'  pointing  to  him  I  looked  at,  '  I  take  to 
be  the  honour  of  our  house  :  Sir  Humphrey  de  Coverley.  He  was 
in  his  dealings  as  punctual  as  a  tradesman,  and  as  generous  as  a 
gentleman.  He  would  have  thought  himself  as  much  undone  by 
breaking  his  word,  as  if  it  were  to  be  followed  by  bankruptcy. 
He  served  his  country  as  knight  of  the  shire  to  his  dying  day. 
He  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  maintain  an  integrity  in  his  words 
and  actions,  even  in  things  that  regarded  the  offices  which  were 
incumbent  upon  him,  in  the  care  of  his  own  affairs  and  relations 
of  life,  and  therefore  dreaded,  though  he  had  great  talents,  to  go 
into  employments  of  state,  where  he  must  be  exposed  to  the 
snares  of  ambition.  Innocence  of  life  and  great  ability  were  the 
distinguishing  parts  of  his  character;  the  latter,  he  had  often 
observed,  had  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  former,  and  he  used 
frequently  to  lament  that  great  and  good  had  not  the  same  sig- 
nification. He  was  an  excellent  husbandman,  but  had  resolved 
not  to  exceed  such  a  degree  of  wealth  ;  all  above  it  he  bestowed  in 
secret  bounties  many  years  after  the  sum  he  aimed  at  for  his  own 
use  was  attained.  Yet  he  did  not  slacken  his  industry,  but  to  a 
decent  old  age  spent  the  life  and  fortune  which  was  superfluous  to 
himself,  in  the  service  of  his  friends  and  neighbours.'  • 

Here  we  were  called  to  dinner,  and  Sir  Roger  ended  the  dis- 
course of  this  gentleman,  by  telling  me,  as  we  followed  the  ser- 
vant, that  this  his  ancestor  was  a  brave  man,  and  narrowly  escaped 
being  killed  in  the  civil  wars ;  '  for,'  said  he,  '  he  was  sent  out  of 
the  field  upon  a  private  message,  the  day  before  the  battle  of 
Worcester."  The  whim  of  narrowly  escaping  by  having  been 
within  a  day  of  danger,  with  other  matters  above  mentioned, 
mixed  with  good  sense,  left  me  at  a  loss  whether  I  was  more 
delighted  with  my  friend's  wisdom  or  simplicity. 


340  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

No.  113.  TUESDAY,  July  10,  1711. 

In  my  first  description  of  the  company  in  which  I  pass  most  of 
my  time,  it  may  be  remembered  that  I  mentioned  a  great  affliction 
which  my  friend  Sir  Roger  had  met  with  in  his  youth ;  which  was 
no  less  than  a  disappointment  in  love.  It  happened  this  evening, 
that  we  fell  into  a  very  pleasing  walk  at  a  distance  from  his  house. 
As  soon  as  we  came  into  it,  '  It  is,'  quoth  the  good  man,  looking 
round  him  with  a  smile,  '  very  hard,  that  any  part  of  my  land 
should  be  settled  upon  one  who  has  used  me  so  ill  as  the  perverse 
widow  did ;  and  yet  I  am  sure  I  could  not  see  a  sprig  of  any 
bough  of  this  whole  walk  of  trees,  but  I  should  reflect  upon  her 
and  her  severity.  She  has  certainly  the  finest  hand  of  any  woman 
in  the  world.  You  are  to  know,  this  was  the  place  wherein  I  used 
to  muse  upon  her,  and  by  that  custom  I  can  never  come  into  it, 
but  the  same  tender  sentiments  revive  in  my  mind,  as  if  I  had 
actually  walked  with  that  beautiful  creature  under  these  shades.  I 
have  been  fool  enough  to  carve  her  name  on  the  bark  of  several 
of  these  trees ;  so  unhappy  is  the  condition  of  men  in  love,  to 
attempt  the  removing  of  their  passion  by  the  methods  which  serve 
only  to  imprint  it  deeper.  She  has  certainly  the  finest  hand  of 
any  woman  in  the  world.' 

Here  followed  a  profound  silence ;  and  I  was  not  displeased  to 
observe  my  friend  falling  so  naturally  into  a  discourse,  which  I  had 
ever  before  taken  notice  he  industriously  avoided.  —  After  a  very 
long  pause  he  entered  upon  an  account  of  this  great  circumstance 
in  his  life*,  with  an  air  which  I  thought  raised  my  idea  of  him  above 
what  I  had  ever  had  before ;  and  gave  me  the  picture  of  that 
cheerful  mind  of  his,  before  it  received  that  stroke  which  has  ever 
since  affected  his  words  and  actions.  But  he  went  on  as  follows  : 

'  I  came  to  my  estate  in  my  twenty-second  year,  and  resolved  to 
follow  the  steps  of  the  most  worthy  of  my  ancestors  who  have 
inhabited  this  spot  of  earth  before  me,  in  all  the  methods  of  hos- 
pitality and  good  neighbourhood,  for  the  sake  of  my  fame ;  and  in 
country  sports  and  recreations,  for  the  sake  of  my  health.  In  my 
twenty-third  year  I  was  obliged  to  serve  as  sheriff  of  the  county, 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  341 

and  in  my  servants,  officers,  and  whole  equipage,  indulged  the 
pleasure  of  a  young  man,  who  did  not  think  ill  of  his  own  person, 
in  taking  that  public  occasion  of  showing  my  figure  and  behaviour 
to  advantage.  You  may  easily  imagine  to  yourself  what  appear- 
ance I  made,  who  am  pretty  tall,  rid  well,  and  was  very  well 
dressed,  at  the  head  of  a  whole  county,  with  music  before  me,  a 
feather  in  my  hat,  and  my  horse  well  bitted.  I  can  assure  you,  I 
was  not  a  little  pleased  with  the  kind  looks  and  glances  I  had 
from  all  the  balconies  and  windows  as  I  rode  to  the  hall  where  the 
assizes  were  held.  But  when  I  came  there,  a  beautiful  creature  in 
a  widow's  habit  sat  in  court  to  hear  the  event  of  a  cause  concern- 
ing her  dower.  This  commanding  creature,  who  was  born  for  the 
destruction  of  all  who  beheld  her,  put  on  such  a  resignation  in  her 
countenance,  and  bore  the  whispers  of  all  around  the  court  with 
such  a  pretty  uneasiness,  I  warrant  you,  and  then  recovered  her- 
self from  one  eye  to  another,  till  she  was  perfectly  confused  by 
meeting  something  so  wistful  in  all  she  encountered,  that  at  last, 
with  a  murrain  to  her,  she  cast  her  bewitching  eye  upon  me.  I  no 
sooner  met  it  but  I  bowed  like  a  great  surprised  booby,  and  know- 
ing her  cause  to  be  the  first  which  came  on,  I  cried,  like  a  capti- 
vated calf  as  I  was,  "Make  way  for  the  defendant's  witnesses." 
This  sudden  partiality  made  all  the  county  immediately  see  the 
sheriff  was  also  become  a  slave  to  the  fine  widow.  During  the 
time  her  cause  was  upon  trial,  she  behaved  herself,  I  warrant  you, 
with  such  a  deep  attention  to  her  business,  took  opportunities  to 
have  little  billets  handed  to  her  counsel,  then  would  be  in  such  a 
pretty  confusion,  occasioned,  you  must  know,  by  acting  before  so 
much  company,  that  not  only  I  but  the  whole  court  was  prejudiced 
in  her  favour ;  and  all  that  the  next  heir  to  her  husband  had  to 
urge,  was  thought  so  groundless  and  frivolous,  that  when  it  came 
to  her  counsel  to  reply,  there  was  not  half  so  much  said  as  every- 
one besides  in  the  court  thought  he  could  have  urged  to  her  ad- 
vantage. You  must  understand,  sir,  this  perverse  woman  is  one 
of  those  unaccountable  creatures  that  secretly  rejoice  in  the  admi- 
ration of  men,  but  indulge  themselves  in  no  further  consequences. 


342  SIX  RICHARD  STEELE. 

Hence  it  is  that  she  has  ever  had  a  train  of  admirers,  and  she 
removes  from  her  slaves  in  town  to  those  in  the  country,  accord- 
ing to  the  seasons  of  the  year.  She  is  a  reading  lady,  and  far 
gone  in  the  pleasures  of  friendship.  She  is  always  accompanied 
by  a  confidant,  who  is  witness  to  her  daily  protestations  against 
our  sex,  and  consequently  a  bar  to  her  first  steps  towards  love, 
upon  the  strength  of  her  own  maxims  and  declarations. 

'  However,  I  must  needs  say,  this  accomplished  mistress  of 
mine  has  distinguished  me  above  the  rest,  and  has  been  known  to 
declare  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  was  the  tamest  and  most  humane 
of  all  the  brutes  in  the  country.  I  was  told  she  said  so  by  one 
who  thought  he  rallied  me ;  but  upon  the  strength  of  this  slender 
encouragement  of  being  thought  least  detestable,  I  made  new 
liveries,  new-paired  my  coach-horses,  sent  them  all  to  town  to  be 
bitted,  and  taught  to  throw  their  legs  well,  and  move  all  together, 
before  I  pretended  to  cross  the  country,  and  wait  upon  her.  As 
soon  as  I  thought  my  retinue  suitable  to  the  character  of  my  for- 
tune and  youth,  I  set  out  from  hence  to  make  my  addresses. 
The  particular  skill  of  this  lady  has  ever  been  to  inflame  your 
wishes,  and  yet  to  command  respect.  To  make  her  mistress  of 
this  art,  she  has  a  greater  share  of  knowledge,  wit,  and  good  sense, 
than  is  usual  even  among  men  of  merit.  Then  she  is  beautiful 
beyond  the  race  of  women.  If  you  will  not  let  her  go  on  with  a 
certain  artifice  with  her  eyes,  and  the  skill  of  beauty,  she  will  arm 
herself  with  her  real  charms,  and  strike  you  with  admiration  in- 
stead of  desire.  It  is  certain  that  if  you  were  to  behold  the  whole 
woman,  there  is  that  dignity  in  her  aspect,  that  composure  in  her 
motion,  that  complacency  in  her  manner,  that  if  her  form  makes 
you  hope,  her  merit  makes  you  fear.  But  then  again,  she  is  such 
a  desperate  scholar,  that  no  country  gentleman  can  approach  her 
without  being  a  jest.  As  I  was  going  to  tell  you,  when  I  came  to 
her  house,  I  was  admitted  to  her  presence  with  great  civility ;  at 
the  same  time  she  placed  herself  to  be  first  seen  by  me  in  such  an 
attitude,  as  I  think  you  call  the  posture  of  a  picture,  that  she  dis- 
covered new  charms,  and  I.  at  last  came  towards  her  with  such  an 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  343 

awe  as  made  me  speechless.  This  she  no  sooner  observed  but 
she  made  her  advantage  of  it,  and  began  a  discourse  to  me  con- 
cerning love  and  honour,  as  they  both  are  followed  by  pretenders, 
and  the  real  votaries  to  them.  When  she  discussed  these  points  in 
a  discourse,  which,  I  verily  believe,  was  as  learned  as  the  best  phil- 
osopher in  Europe  could  possibly  make,  she  asked  me  whether  she 
was  so  happy  as  to  fall  in  with  my  sentiments  on  these  important 
particulars.  Her  confidant  sat  by  her,  and  upon  my  being  in  the 
last  confusion  and  silence,  this  malicious  aid  of  her's  turning  to 
her,  says,  "  I  am  very  glad  to  observe  Sir  Roger  pauses  upon 
this  subject,  and  seems  resolved  to  deliver  all  his  sentiments  upon 
the  matter  when  he  pleases  to  speak."  They  both  kept  their 
countenances,  and  after  I  had  sat  half  an  hour  meditating  how  to 
behave  before  such  profound  casuists,  I  rose  up  and  took  my  leave. 
Chance  has  since  that  time  thrown  me  very  often  in  her  way,  and 
she  as  often  has  directed  a  discourse  to  me  which  I  do  not  under- 
stand. This  barbarity  has  kept  me  ever  at  a  distance  from  the 
most  beautiful  object  my  eyes  ever  beheld.  It  is  thus  also  she 
deals  with  all  mankind,  and  you  must  make  love  to  her,  as  you 
would  conquer  the  sphinx,  by  posing  her.  But  were  she  like 
other  women,  and  that  there  were  any  talking  to  her,  how  constant 
must  the  pleasure  of  that  man  be,  who  could  converse  with  a  crea- 
ture —  But,  after  all,  you  may  be  sure  her  heart  is  fixed  on  some 
one  or  other ;  and  yet  I  have  been  credibly  informed ;  but  who 
can  believe  half  that  is  said  !  —  after  she  had  done  speaking  to 
me,  she  put  her  hand  to  her  bosom,  and  adjusted  her  tucker. 
Then  she  cast  her  eyes  a  little  down,  upon  my  beholding  her  too 
earnestly.  They  say  she  sings  excellently :  her  voice  in  her  or- 
dinary speech  has  something  in  it  inexpressibly  sweet.  You  must 
know  I  dined  with  her  at  a  public  table  the  day  after  I  first  saw 
her,  and  she  helped  me  to  some  tansy  in  the  eye  of  all  the  gentle- 
men in  the  country.  She  has  certainly  the  finest  hand  of  any 
woman  in  the  world.  I  can  assure  you,  sir,  were  you  to  behold 
her,  you  would  be  in  the  same  condition ;  for,  as  her  speech  is 
music,  her  form  is  angelic.  But  I  find  I  grow  irregular  while  I  am 


344  SIR  RICHARD   STEELE. 

talking  of  her ;  but  indeed  it  would  be  stupidity  to  be  uncon- 
cerned at  such  perfection.  Oh,  the  excellent  creature  !  she  is  as 
inimitable  to  all  women,  as  she  is  inaccessible  to  all  men  — ' 

I  found  my  friend  began  to  rave,  and  insensibly  led  him  towards 
the  house,  that  we  might  be  joined  by  some  other  company ;  and 
am  convinced  that  the  widow  is  the  secret  cause  of  all  that  in- 
consistency which  appears  in  some  parts  of  my  friend's  discourse ; 
though  he  has  so  much  command  of  himself  as  not  directly  to 
mention  her,  yet  according  to  that  of  Martial,  which  one  knows 
not  how  to  render  into  English,  dum  facet,  hanc  loquitur  ;3  I  shall 
end  this  paper  with  that  whole  epigram,  which  represents  with 
much  humour  my  honest  friend's  condition  : 

"  Quidquid  agit  Rufus,  nihil  est  nisi  Ntzvia  Rufo. 

Si  gaudet,  si  flet,  si  facet,  hanc  loquitur; 
Ccenat,  propinat,  poscit,  negat,  innuit,  una  est 

Nczvia  ;  si  non  sit  Ntzvia.,  mutus  erit. 
Scriberet  hesternd  patri  cum  luce  salutem, 
Ncevia  lux,  inquit,  N&via!  numen,  ave. 

MARTIAL,  Epigrams,  I.  69. 

"  Let  Rufus  weep,  rejoice,  stand,  sit  or  walk, 
Still  he  can  nothing  but  of  Nsevia  talk ; 
Let  him  eat,  drink,  ask  questions,  or  dispute, 
Still  he  must  speak  of  Nsevia,  or  be  mute. 
He  writ  to  his  father,  ending  with  this  line, 
I  am,  my  lovely  Naevia,  ever  thine." 

No.  118.  MONDAY,  July  16, 1711. 

This  agreeable  seat  is  surrounded  with  so  many  pleasing  walks, 
which  are  struck  out  of  a  wood,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  house 
stands,  that  one  can  hardly  ever  be  weary  of  rambling  from  one 
labyrinth  of  delight  to  another.  To  one  used  to  live  in  a  city  the 
charms  of  the  country  are  so  exquisite,  that  the  mind  is  lost  in  a 
certain  transport  which  raises  us  above  ordinary  life,  and  yet  is 
not  strong  enough  to  be  inconsistent  with  tranquillity.  This  state 

8  -while  he  is  silent,  he  speaks  of  her. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  345 

of  mind  was  I  in,  ravished  with  the  murmur  of  waters,  the  whisper 
of  breezes,  the  singing  of  birds ;  and  whether  I  looked  up  to  the 
heavens,  down  on  the  earth,  or  turned  to  the  prospects  around 
me,  still  stnick  with  new  sense  of  pleasure ;  when  I  found  by 
the  voice  of  my  friend,  who  walked  by  me,  that  we  had  insensibly 
strolled  into  the  grove  sacred  to  the  widow.  '  This  woman,'  says 
he,  '  is  of  all  others  the  most  unintelligible  ;  she  either  designs  to 
marry,  or  she  does  not.  What  is  the  most  perplexing  of  all  is, 
that  she  does  not  either  say  to  her  lovers  she  has  any  resolution 
against  that  condition  of  life  in  general,  or  that  she  banishes  them  ; 
but  conscious  of  her  own  merit  she  permits  their  addresses  without 
fear  of  any  ill  consequences,  or  want  of  respect,  from  their  rage  or 
despair.  She  has  that  in  her  aspect,  against  which  it  is  impossible 
to  offend.  A  man  whose  thoughts  are  constantly  bent  upon  so 
agreeable  an  object,  must  be  excused  if  the  ordinary  occurrences 
in  conversation  are  below  his  attention.  I  call  her  indeed  per- 
verse, but,  alas  !  why  do  I  call  her  so  ?  because  her  superior  merit 
is  such,  that  I  cannot  approach  her  without  awe,  that  my  heart  is 
checked  by  too  much  esteem  !  I  am  angry  that  her  charms  are 
not  more  accessible,  that  I  am  more  inclined  to  worship  than 
salute  her.  How  often  have  I  wished  her  unhappy  that  I  might 
have  an  opportunity  of  serving  her?  and  how  often  troubled  in 
that  very  imagination,  at  giving  her  the  pain  of  being  obliged? 
Well,  I  have  led  a  miserable  life  in  secret  upon  her  account ;  but 
fancy  she  would  have  condescended  to  have  some  regard  for  me, 
if  it  had  not  been  for  that  watchful  animal  her  confidant. 

'  Of  all  persons  under  the  sun,'  continued  he,  calling  me  by  my 
name,  '  be  sure  to  set  a  mark  upon  confidants  :  they  are  of  all 
people  the  most  impertinent.  What  is  most  pleasant  to  observe 
in  them,  is,  that  they  assume  to  themselves  the  merit  of  the  per- 
sons whom  they  have  in  their  custody.  Orestilla  is  a  great  fortune, 
and  in  wonderful  danger  of  surprises,  therefore  full  of  suspicions 
of  the  least  indifferent  thing,  particularly  careful  of  new  acquain- 
tance, and  of  growing  too  familiar  with  the  old.  Themista,  her 
favourite  woman,  is  every  whit  as  careful  of  whom  she  speaks  to, 


346  SIX  RICHARD  STEELE. 

and  what  she  says.  Let  the  ward  be  a  beauty,  her  confidant  shall 
treat  you  with  an  air  of  distance ;  let  her  be  a  fortune,  and  she 
assumes  the  suspicious  behaviour  of  her  friend  and  patroness. 
Thus  it  is  that  very  many  of  our  unmarried  women  of  distinction 
are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  married,  except  the  consideration 
of  different  sexes.  They  are  directly  under  the  conduct  of  their 
whisperers ;  and  think  they  are  in  a  state  of  freedom,  while  they 
can  prate  with  one  of  these  attendants  of  all  men  in  general,  and 
still  avoid  the  man  they  most  like.  You  do  not  see  one  heiress  in 
a  hundred  whose  fate  does  not  turn  upon  this  circumstance  of 
choosing  a  confidant.  Thus  it  is  that  the  lady  is  addressed  to, 
presented  and  flattered,  only  by  proxy,  in  her  woman.  In  my 
case,  how  is  it  possible  that  —  ? '  Sir  Roger  was  proceeding  in 
his  harangue,  when  we  heard  the  voice  of  one  speaking  very  impor- 
tunately, and  repeating  these  words, '  What,  not  one  smile  ? '  We 
followed  the  sound  till  we  came  to  a  close  thicket,  on  the  other 
side  of  which  we  saw  a  young  woman  sitting  as  it  were  in  a  person- 
ated sullenness  just  over  a  transparent  fountain.  Opposite  to  her 
stood  Mr.  Williams,  Sir  Roger's  master  of  the  game.  The  knight 
whispered  me,  'Hist,  these  are  lovers.'  The  huntsman  looking 
earnestly  at  the  shadow  of  the  young  maiden  in  the  stream,  '  Oh 
thou  dear  picture,  if  thou  couldst  remain  there  in  the  absence  of 
that  fair  creature  whom  you  represent  in  the  water,  how  willingly 
could  I  stand  here  satisfied  forever,  without  troubling  my  dear 
Betty  herself  with  any  mention  of  her  unfortunate  William,  whom 
she  is  angry  with  !  But  alas  !  when  she  pleases  to  be  gone,  thou 
wilt  also  vanish  —  Yet  let  me  talk  to  thee  while  thou  dost  stay. 
Tell  my  dearest  Betty  thou  dost  not  more  depend  upon  her,  than 
does  her  William  :  her  absence  will  make  away  with  me  as  well  as 
thee.  If  she  offers  to  remove  thee,  I  will  jump  into  these  waves 
to  lay  hold  on  thee ;  herself,  her  own  dear  person,  I  must  never 
embrace  again.  —  Still  do  you  hear  me  without  one  smile  —  It  is 
too  much  to  bear.'  —  He  had  no  sooner  spoke  these  words,  but 
he  made  an  offer  of  throwing  himself  into  the  water :  at  which  his 
mistress  started  up,  and  at  the  next  instant  he  jumped  across  the 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  347 

fountain,  and  met  her  in  an  embrace.  She,  half  recovering  from 
her  fright,  said  in  the  most  charming  voice  imaginable,  and  with  a 
tone  of  complaint,  '  I  thought  how  well  you  would  drown  yourself. 
No,  no,  you  won't  drown  yourself  till  you  have  taken  your  leave  of 
Susan  Holiday."  The  huntsman,  with  a  tenderness  that  spoke  the 
most  passionate  love,  and  with  his  cheek  close  to  her's,  whispered 
the  softest  vows  of  fidelity  in  her  ear,  and  cried,  '  Don't,  my  dear, 
believe  a  word  Kate  Willow  says ;  she  is  spiteful,  and  makes  sto- 
ries, because  she  loves  to  hear  me  talk  to  herself  for  your  sake.' 
'  Look  you  there,'  quoth  Sir  Roger,  '  do  you  see  there,  all  mischief 
comes  from  confidants  !  But  let  us  not  interrupt  them ;  the  maid 
is  honest  and  the  man  dare  not  be  otherwise,  for  he  knows  I  loved 
her  father  :  I  will  interpose  in  this  matter,  and  hasten  the  wedding. 
Kate  Willow  is  a  witty  mischievous  wench  in  the  neighbourhood, 
who  was  a  beauty :  and  makes  me  hope  I  shall  see  the  perverse 
widow  in  her  condition.  She  was  so  flippant  with  her  answers  to 
all  the  honest  fellows  that  came  near  her,  and  so  very  vain  of  her 
beauty,  that  she  has  valued  herself  upon  her  charms  till  they  have 
ceased.  She  therefore  now  makes  it  her  business  to  prevent  other 
young  women  from  being  more  discreet  than  she  was  herself: 
however,  the  saucy  thing  said  the  other  day  well  enough,  "  Sir 
Roger  and  I  must  make  a  match,  for  we  are  both  despised  by 
those  we  loved."  The  hussy  has  a  great  deal  of  power  wherever 
she  comes,  and  has  her  share  of  cunning. 

'  However,  when  I  reflect  upon  this  woman,  I  do  not  know 
whether  in  the  main  I  am  the  worse  for  having  loved  her :  when- 
ever she  is  recalled  to  my  imagination,  my  youth  returns,  and  I  feel 
a  forgotten  warmth  in  my  veins.  This  affliction  in  my  life  has 
streaked  all  my  conduct  with  a  softness,  of  which  I  should  other- 
wise have  been  incapable.  It  is  owing,  perhaps,  to  this  dear 
image  in  my  heart  that  I  am  apt  to  relent,  that  I  easily  forgive, 
and  that  many  desirable  things  are  grown  into  my  temper,  which 
I  should  not  have  arrived  at  by  better  motives  than  the  thought  of 
being  one  day  hers.  I  am  pretty  well  satisfied  such  a  passion  as 
I  have  had  is  never  well  cured ;  and  between  you  and  me,  I  am 


348  SIR  RICHARD  STEELS. 

often  apt  to  imagine  it  has  had  some  whimsical  effect  upon  my 
brain ;  for  I  frequently  find,  that  in  my  most  serious  discourse  I 
let  fall  some  comical  familiarity  of  speech  or  odd  phrase  that 
makes  the  company  laugh.  However,  I  cannot  but  allow  she  is 
a  most  excellent  woman.  When  she  is  in  the  country,  I  warrant 
she  does  not  run  into  dairies,  but  reads  upon  the  nature  of  plants ; 
but  has  a  glass-hive,  and  comes  into  the  garden  out  of  books  to 
see  them  work,  and  observe  the  policies  of  their  commonwealth. 
She  understands  everything.  I  would  give  ten  pounds  to  hear 
her  argue  with  my  friend  Sir  Andrew  Freeport  about  trade.  No, 
no,  for  all  she  looks  so  innocent,  as  it  were,  take  my  word  for  it 
she  is  no  fool.' 

No.  132.  WEDNESDAY,  August  i,  1711. 

Having  notified  to  my  good  friend  Sir  Roger  that  I  should  set 
out  for  London  the  next  day,  his  horses  were  ready  at  the  ap- 
pointed hour  in  the  evening ;  and  attended  by  one  of  his  grooms, 
I  arrived  at  the  county-town  at  twilight,  in  order  to  be  ready  for 
the  stage-coach  the  day  following.  As  soon  as  we  arrived  at  the 
inn,  the  servant  who  waited  upon  me  inquired  of  the  chamberlain 
in  my  hearing  what  company  he  had  for  the  coach  ?  The  fellow 
answered,  'Mrs.  Betty  Arable  the  great  fortune,  and  the  widow, 
her  mother ;  a  recruiting  officer,  who  took  a  place  because  they 
were  to  go ;  young  Squire  Quickset,  her  cousin,  that  her  mother 
wished  her  to  be  married  to  ;  Ephraim  the  quaker,  her  guardian ; 
and  a  gentleman  that  has  studied  himself  dumb  from  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverley's.'  I  observed  by  what  he  said  of  myself  that  ac- 
cording to  his  office  he  dealt  much  in  intelligence ;  and  doubted 
not  but  there  was  some  foundation  for  his  reports  of  the  rest  of 
the  company,  as  well  as  for  the  whimsical  account  he  gave  of  me. 
The  next  morning  at  daybreak  we  were  all  called  ;  and  I  who 
know  my  own  natural  shyness,  and  endeavour  to  be  as  little  liable 
to  be  disputed  with  as  possible,  dressed  immediately,  that  I  might 
make  no  one  wait.  The  first  preparation  for  our  setting  out  was, 
that  the  captain's  half  pike  was  placed  near  the  coachman,  and  a 


SELECTIONS   FROM   THE   SPECTATOR.  349 

drum  behind  the  coach.  In  the  mean  time  the  drummer,  the 
captain's  equipage,4  was  very  loud,  '  that  none  of  the  captain's 
things  should  be  placed  so  as  to  be  spoiled ; '  upon  which  his 
cloak-bag  was  fixed  in  the  seat  of  the  coach ;  and  the  captain 
himself,  according  to  a  frequent,  though  invidious  behaviour  of 
miltary  men,  ordered  his  man  to  look  sharp,  that  none  but  one 
of  the  ladies  should  have  the  place  he  had  taken  fronting  the 
coach-box. 

We  were  in  some  little  time  fixed  in  our  seats,  and  sat  with 
that  dislike  which  people  not  too  good-natured  usually  conceive 
of  each  other  at  first  sight.  The  coach  jumbled  us  insensibly 
into  some  sort  of  familiarity ;  and  we  had  not  moved  above  two 
miles,  when  the  widow  asked  the  captain  what  success  he  had  in 
his  recruiting?  The  officer,  with  a  frankness  he  believed  very 
graceful,  told  her,  '  that  indeed  he  had  but  very  little  luck,  and 
had  suffered  much  by  desertion,  therefore  should  be  glad  to  end 
his  warfare  in  the  service  of  her  or  her  fair  daughter.  In  a  word,' 
continued  he, '  I  am  a  soldier,  and  to  be  plain  is  my  character ; 
you  see  me,  madam,  young,  sound,  and  impudent ;  take  me  your- 
self, widow,  or  give  me  to  her,  I  will  be  wholly  at  your  disposal. 
I  am  a  soldier  of  fortune,  ha  !  —  '  This  was  followed  by  a  vain 
laugh  of  his  own,  and  a  deep  silence  of  all  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany. I  had  nothing  left  for  it  but  to  fall  fast  asleep,  which  I 
did  with  all  speed.  — 

'  Come,'  said  he,  '  resolve  upon  it,  we  will  make  a  wedding  at 
the  next  town;  we  will  wake  this  pleasant  companion  who  is 
fallen  asleep,  to  be  the  bride-man  ;  and,'  giving  the  quaker  a  clap 
on  the  knee,  he  concluded,  '  this  sly  saint,  who,  I  will  warrant, 
understands  what  is  what  as  well  as  you  or  I,  widow,  shall  give  the 
bride  as  father.'  The  quaker,  who  happened  to  be  a  man  of 
smartness,  answered  :  '  Friend,  I  take  it  in  good  part  that  thou 
hast  given  me  the  authority  of  a  father  over  this  comely  and  vir- 
tuous child ;  and  I  must  assure  thee,  that  if  I  have  the  giving  her, 
I  shall  not  bestow  her  on  thee.  Thy  mirth,  friend,  savoureth  of 

*  attendant. 


350  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

folly ;  thou  art  a  person  of  a  light  mind ;  thy  drum  is  a  type  of 
thee,  it  soundeth  because  it  is  empty.  Verily,  it  is  not  from  thy 
fulness,  but  thy  emptiness  that  thou  hast  spoken  this  day.  Friend, 
friend,  we  have  hired  this  coach  in  partnership  with  thee,  to  carry 
us  to  the  great  city ;  we  cannot  go  any  other  way.  This  worthy 
mother  must  hear  thee  if  thou  wilt  needs  utter  thy  follies ;  we 
cannot  help  it,  friend,  I  say ;  if  thou  wilt,  we  must  hear  thee ;  but 
if  thou  wert  a  man  of  understanding,  thou  wouldst  not  take  ad- 
vantage of  thy  courageous  countenance  to  abash  us  children  of 
peace. — Thou  art,  thou  sayest,  a  soldier;  give  quarter  to  us, 
who  cannot  resist  thee.  Why  didst  thou  fleer  at  our  friend,  who 
feigned  himself  asleep?  He  said  nothing;  but  how  dost  thou 
know  what  he  containeth?  If  thou  speakest  improper  things 
in  the  hearing  of  this  virtuous  young  virgin,  consider  it  as  an 
outrage  against  a  distressed  person  that  cannot  get  from  thee ;  to 
speak  indiscreetly  what  we  are  obliged  to  hear,  by  being  hasped 
up  with  thee  in  this  public  vehicle,  is  in  some  degree  assaulting  on 
the  high-road.' 

Here  Ephraim  paused,  and  the  captain,  with  a  happy  and  un- 
common impudence,  which  can  be  convicted  and  support  itself  at 
the  same  time,  cries,  '  Faith,  friend,  I  thank  thee  ;  I  should  have 
been  a  little  impertinent  if  thou  hadst  not  reprimanded  me. 
Come,  thou  art,  I  see,  a  smoky  old  fellow,  and  I  will  be  very 
orderly  the  ensuing  part  of  the  journey.  I  was  going  to  give  my- 
self airs,  but,  ladies,  I  beg  pardon.' 

The  captain  was  so  little  out  of  humour,  and  our  company  was 
so  far  from  being  soured  by  this  little  ruffle,  that  Ephraim  and  he 
took  a  particular  delight  in  being  agreeable  to  each  other  for  the 
future  ;  and  assumed  their  different  provinces  in  the  conduct  of  the 
company.  Our  reckonings,  apartments,  and  accommodation,  fell 
under  Ephraim ;  and  the  captain  looked  to  all  disputes  on  the 
road,  as  the  good  behaviour  of  our  coachman,  and  the  right  we 
had  of  taking  place,  as  going  to  London,  of  all  vehicles  coming 
from  thence.  The  occurrences  we  met  with  were  ordinary,  and 
very  little  happened  which  could  entertain  by  the  relation  of 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SPECTATOR.  351 

them  ;  but  when  I  considered  the  company  we  were  in,  I  took  it 
for  no  small  good  fortune,  that  the  whole  journey  was  not  spent 
in  impertinences,  which  to  one  part  of  us  might  be  an  entertain- 
ment, to  the  other  a  suffering.  What  therefore  Ephraim  said 
when  we  were  almost  arrived  at  London,  had  to  me  an  air  not 
only  of  good  understanding,  but  good  breeding.  Upon  the  young 
lady's  expressing  her  satisfaction  in  the  journey,  and  declaring  how 
delightful  it  had  been  to  her,  Ephraim  delivered  himself  as  fol- 
lows :  '  There  is  no  ordinary  part  of  human  life,  which  expresseth 
so  much  a  good  mind,  and  a  right  inward  man,  as  his  behaviour 
upon  meeting  with  strangers,  especially  such  as  may  seem  the 
most  unsuitable  companions  to  him ;  such  a  man,  when  he  falleth 
in  the  way  with  persons  of  simplicity  and  innocence,  however 
knowing  he  may  be  in  the  ways  of  men,  will  not  vaunt  himself 
thereof,  but  will  the  rather  hide  his  superiority  to  them,  that  he 
may  not  be  painful  unto  them.  My  good  friend,'  continued  he, 
turning  to  the  officer,  '  thee  and  I  are  to  part  by  and  by,  and  per- 
adventure  we  may  never  meet  again ;  but  be  advised  by  a  plain 
man ;  modes  and  apparel  are  but  trifles  to  the  real  man,  therefore 
do  not  think  such  a  man  as  thyself  terrible  for  thy  garb,  nor  such 
a  one  as  me  contemptible  for  mine.  When  two  such  as  thee  and 
I  meet,  with  affections  as  we  ought  to  have  towards  each  other, 
thou  shouldst  rejoice  to  see  my  peaceable  demeanour,  and  I  should 
be  glad  to  see  thy  strength  and  ability  to  protect  me  in  it.' 


2.   ON  READING  THE  CHURCH-SERVICE. 
No.  147.  SATURDAY,  August  18, 1711. 

"MR.  SPECTATOR, 

"  The  well  reading  of  the  Common-Prayer  is  of  so  great  impor- 
tance, and  so  much  neglected,  that  I  take  the  liberty  to  offer  to 
your  consideration  some  particulars  on  that  subject.  And  what 
more  worthy  your  observation  than  this?  A  thing  so  public,  and 
of  so  high  consequence.  It  is  indeed  wonderful,  that  the  frequent 


352  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

exercise  of  it  should  no.t  make  the  performers  of  that  duty  more 
expert  in  it.  This  inability,  as  I  conceive,  proceeds  from  the  little 
care  that  is  taken  of  their  reading  while  boys  and  at  school,  where 
when  they  are  got  into  Latin,  they  are  looked  upon  as  above  Eng- 
lish, the  reading  of  which  is  wholly  neglected,  or  at  least  read  to 
very  little  purpose,  without  any  due  observations  made  to  them  of 
the  proper  accent  and  manner  of  reading ;  by  this  means  they 
have  acquired  such  ill  habits  as  will  not  easily  be  removed.  The 
only  way  that  I  know  of  to  remedy  this,  is  to  propose  some  per- 
son of  great  ability  that  way  as  a  pattern  for  them  ;  example  being 
most  effectual  to  convince  the  learned,  as  well  as  instruct  the 
ignorant. 

"  You  must  know,  sir,  I  have  been  a  constant  frequenter  of  the 
service  of  the  Church  of  England  for  above  these  four  years  last 
past,  and  till  Sunday  was  seven-night  never  discovered,  to  so  great  a 
degree,  the  excellency  of  the  Common-Prayer.  When,  being  at  St. 
James's  Garlick-Hill  church,  I  heard  the  service  read  so  distinctly, 
so  emphatically,  and  so  fervently,  that  it  was  next  to  an  impossi- 
bility to  be  unattentive.  My  eyes  and  my  thoughts  could  not 
wander  as  usual,  but  were  confined  to  my  prayers.  I  then  consid- 
ered I  addressed  myself  to  the  Almighty,  and  not  to  a  beautiful 
face.  And  when  I  reflected  on  my  former  performances  of  that 
duty,  I  found  I  had  run  it  over  as  a  matter  of  form,  in  comparison 
to  the  manner  in  which  I  then  discharged  it.  My  mind  was  really 
affected,  and  fervent  wishes  accompanied  my  words.  The  Con- 
fession was  read  with  such  resigned  humility,  the  Absolution  with 
such  a  comfortable  authority,  the  Thanksgivings  with  such  a  relig- 
ious joy,  as  made  me  feel  those  affections  of  the  mind  in  a  manner 
I  never  did  before.  To  remedy,  therefore,  the  grievance  above 
complained  of,  I  humbly  propose,  that  this  excellent  reader,  upon 
the  next  and  every  annual  assembly  of  the  clergy  of  Sion-college, 
and  all  other  conventions,  should  read  prayers  before  them.  For 
then  those  that  are  afraid  of  stretching  their  mouths,  and  spoiling 
their  soft  voices,  will  learn  to  read  with  clearness,  loudness,  and 
strength ;  others  that  affect  a  rakish  negligent  air,  by  folding  their 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  SPECTATOR.  353 

arms  and  lolling  on  their  book,  will  be  taught  a  decent  behaviour, 
and  comely  erection  of  body.  Those  that  read  so  fast  as  if  im- 
patient of  their  work,  may  learn  to  speak  deliberately.  There 
is  another  sort  of  persons  whom  I  call  Pindaric  readers,  as  being 
confined  to  no  set  measure ;  these  pronounce  five  or  six  words 
with  great  deliberation,  and  the  five  or  six  subsequent  ones  with 
as  great  celerity ;  the  first  part  of  a  sentence  with  a  very  exalted 
voice,  and  the  latter  part  with  a  submissive  one ;  sometimes 
again,  with  one  sort  of  a  tone,  and  immediately  after  with  a  very 
different  one.  These  gentlemen  will  learn  of  my  admired  reader 
an  evenness  of  voice  and  delivery,  and  all  who  are  innocent  of 
these  affectations,  but  read  with  such  an  indifferency  as  if  they 
did  not  understand  the  language,  may  then  be  informed  of  the  art 
of  reading  movingly  and  fervently,  how  to  place  the  emphasis,  and 
give  the  proper  accent  to  each  word,  and  how  to  vary  the  voice 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  sentence.  There  is  certainly  a 
very  great  difference  between  the  reading  a  prayer  and  a  ga- 
zette, which  I  beg  of  you  to  inform  a  set  of  readers,  who  affect, 
forsooth,  a  certain  gentleman-like  familiarity  of  tone,  and  mend 
the  language  as  they  go  on,  crying,  instead  of  '  pardoneth  and  ab- 
solveth,'  '  pardons  and  absolves.'  These  are  often  pretty  classical 
scholars,  and  would  think  it  an  unpardonable  sin  to  read  Virgil  or 
Martial  with  so  little  taste  as  they  do  divine  service. 

"  This  indifferency  seems  to  me  to  arise  from  the  endeavour  of 
avoiding  the  imputation  of  cant,  and  the  false  notion  of  it.  It  will 
be  proper,  therefore,  to  trace  the  original  and  signification  of  this 
word.  '  Cant '  is,  by  some  people,  derived  from  one  Andrew  Cant, 
who,  they  say,  was  a  presbyterian  minister  in  some  illiterate  part 
of  Scotland,  who  by  exercise  and  use  had  obtained  the  faculty, 
alias  gift,  of  talking  in  the  pulpit  in  such  a  dialect  that  it  is  said  he 
was  understood  by  none  but  his  own  congregation,  and  not  by  all 
of  them.  Since  Master  Cant's  time,  it  has  been  understood  in  a 
larger  sense,  and  signifies  all  sudden  exclamations,  whinings,  unu- 
sual tones,  and  in  fine  all  praying  and  preaching,  like  the  unlearned 
of  the  Presbyterians.  But  I  hope  a  proper  elevation  of  voice,  a 


354  SIR  RICHARD  STEELE. 

due  emphasis  and  accent,  are  not  tor  ccfme  within  this  description. 
So  that  our  readers  may  still  be  as  unlike*  the  Presbyterians  as  they 
please.  The  dissenters,  I  mean  such  as  I  have  heard,  do  indeed 
elevate  their  voices,  but  it  is  with  sudden  jumps  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  part  of  them ;  and  that  with  so  little  sense  or  skill,  that 
their  elevation  and  cadence  is  bawling  and  muttering.  They 
make  use  of  an  emphasis,  but  so  improperly,  that  it  is  often  placed 
on  some  very  insignificant  particle,  as  upon  '  if '  or  '  and.'  Now  if 
these  improprieties  have  so  great  an  effect  on  the  people,  as  we 
see  they  have,  how  great  an  influence  would  the  service  of  our 
church,  containing  the  best  prayers  that  ever  were  composed,  and 
that  in  terms  most  affecting,  most  humble,  and  most  expressive  of 
our  wants,  and  dependence  on  the  object  of  our  worship,  disposed 
in  most  proper  order,  and  void  of  all  confusion ;  what  influence,  I 
say,  would  these  prayers  have,  were  they  delivered  with  a  due 
emphasis,  and  apposite  rising  and  variation  of  voice,  the  sentence 
concluded  with  a  gentle  cadence,  and  in  a  word,  with  such  an 
accent  and  turn  of  speech  as  is  peculiar  to  prayer  ! 

"  As  the  matter  of  worship  is  now  managed,  in  dissenting  con- 
gregations, you  find  insignificant  words  and  phrases  raised  by  a 
lively  vehemence ;  in  our  own  churches,  the  most  exalted  sense 
depreciated  by  a  dispassionate  indolence.  I  remember  to  have 
heard  Dr.  S  —  e  say  in  his  pulpit,  of  the  Common- Prayer,  that, 
at  least,  it  was  as  perfect  as  anything  of  human  institution.  If  the 
gentlemen  who  err  in  this  kind  would  please  to  recollect  the  many 
pleasantries  they  have  read  upon  those  who  recite  good  things 
with  an  ill  grace,  they  would  go  on  to  think  that  what  in  that  case 
is  only  ridiculous,  in  themselves  is  impious.  But  leaving  this  to 
their  own  reflections,  I  shall  conclude  this  trouble  with  what 
Caesar  said  upon  the  irregularity  of  tone  in  one  who  read  before 
him, '  Do  you  read  or  sing?  If  you  sing,  you  sing  very  ill.' 5 

"  Your  most  humble  servant." 

6  Si  legis,  cantas  ;  si  cantas,  male  cantas.  —  C.  CAESAR  in  QUINTILIAN,  I, 
8,  2,  with  clauses  transposed. 


XVII. 

DANIEL    DEFOE. 

(1661-1731.) 

HISTORY  OF  THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON,   1665. 

[Written  about  1722.] 

I  LIVED  without  Aldgate,  about  midway  between  Aldgate  church 
and  Whitechapel  Bars,  on  the  left  hand  or  north  side  of  the 
street ;  and  as  the  distemper  had  not  reached  to  that  side  of  the 
city,  our  neighbourhood  continued  very  easy ;  but  at  the  other  end 
of  the  town  their  consternation  was  very  great,  and  the  richer  sort 
of  people,  especially  the  nobility  and  gentry  from  the  west  part 
of  the  city,  thronged  out  of  town,  with  their  families  and  servants, 
in  an  unusual  manner;  and  this  was  more  particularly  seen  in 
Whitechapel ;  that  is  to  say,  the  Broad-street  where  I  lived ;  in- 
deed nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  waggons  and  carts,  with  goods, 
women,  servants,  children,  etc. ;  coaches  filled  with  people  of  the 
better  sort,  and  horsemen  attending  them,  and  all  hurrying  away ; 
then  empty  waggons  and  carts  appeared,  and  spare  horses  with 
servants,  who  it  was  apparent  were  returning  or  sent  from  the 
country  to  fetch  more  people  :  besides  innumerable  numbers  of 
men  on  horseback,  some  alone,  others  with  servants,  and  generally 
speaking,  all  loaded  with  baggage  and  fitted  out  for  travelling,  as 
any  one  might  perceive  by  their  appearance. 

This  was  a  very  terrible  and  melancholy  thing  to  see,  and  as  it 
was  a  sight  which  I  could  not  but  look  on  from  morning  to  night 
(for  indeed  there  was  nothing  else  of  moment  to  be  seen,)  it 
filled  me  with  very  serious  thoughts  of  the  misery  that  was  coining 

355 


356  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

upon  the  city,  and  the  unhappy  condition  of  those  that  would  be 
left  in  it. 

This  hurry  of  the  people  was  such  for  some  weeks',  that  there 
was  no  getting  at  the  lord  mayor's  door  without  exceeding  diffi- 
culty ;  there  was  such  pressing  and  crowding  there  to  get  passes 
and  certificates  of  health,  for  such  as  travelled  abroad  ;  for,  with- 
out these,  there  was  no  being  admitted  to  pass  through  the  towns 
upon  the  road,  or  to  lodge  in  any  inn.  Now  as  there  had  none 
died  in  the  city  for  all  this  time,  my  lord  mayor  gave  certificates 
of  health  without  any  difficulty  to  all  those  who  lived  in  the  ninety- 
seven  parishes,  and  to  those  within  the  liberties  too,  for  awhile. 

This  hurry,  I  say,  continued  some  weeks,  that  is  to  say,  all  the 
months  of  May  and  June,  and  the  more  because  it  was  rumoured 
that  an  order  of  the  government  was  to  be  issued  out,  to  place 
turnpikes 1  and  barriers  on  the  road,  to  prevent  people's  travelling ; 
and  that  the  towns  on  the  road  would  not  suffer  people  from 
London  to  pass,  for  fear  of  bringing  the  infection  along  with  them, 
though  neither  of  these  rumours  had  any  foundation,  but  in  the 
imagination,  especially  at  first. 

I  now  began  to  consider  seriously  with  myself,  concerning  my 
own  case,  and  how  I  should  dispose  of  myself;  that  is  to  say, 
whether  I  should  resolve  to  stay  in  London,  or  shut  up  my  house 
and  flee,  as  many  of  my  neighbours  did.  I  have  set  this  particular 
down  so  fully,  because  I  know  not  but  it  may  be  of  moment  to 
those  who  come  after  me,  if  they  come  to  be  brought  to  the  same 
distress,  and  to  the  same  manner  of  making  their  choice,  and 
therefore  I  desire  this  account  may  pass  with  them  rather  for  a 
direction  to  themselves  to  act  by,  than  a  history  of  my  actings, 
seeing  it  may  not  be  of  one  farthing  value  to  them  to  note  what 
became  of  me. 

I  had  two  important  things  before  me ;  the  one  was  the  carry- 
ing on  my  business  and  shop,  which  was  considerable,  and  in 
which  was  embarked  all  my  effects  in  the  world ;  and  the  other 
was  the  preservation  of  my  life  in  so  dismal  a  calamity,  as  I  saw 

1  turnstiles,  or  gates,  to  prevent  passing  without  authority. 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  357 

apparently  was  coming  upon  the  whole  city ;  and  which,  however 
great  it  was,  my  fears  perhaps,  as  well  as  other  people's,  repre- 
sented to  be  much  greater  than  it  could  be. 

The  first  consideration  was  of  great  moment  to  me ;  my  trade 
was  a  saddler,  and  as  my  dealings  were  chiefly  not  by  a  shop  or 
chance  trade,  but  among  the  merchants,  trading  to  the  English 
colonies  in  America,  so  my  effects  lay  very  much  in  the  hands  of 
such.  I  was  a  single  man  it  is  true,  but  I  had  a  family  of  servants, 
who  I  kept  at  my  business ;  had  a  house,  shop,  and  warehouses 
filled  with  goods ;  and,  in  short,  to  leave  them  all  as  things  in 
such  a  case  must  be  left,  that  is  to  say,  without  any  overseer  or 
person  fit  to  be  trusted  with  them,  had  been  to  hazard  the  loss 
not  only  of  my  trade,  but  of  my  goods,  and  indeed  of  all  I  had  in 
the  world. 

I  had  an  elder  brother  at  the  same  time  in  London,  and  not 
many  years  before  come  over  from  Portugal ;  and,  advising  with 
him,  his  answer  was  in  the  three  words,  the  same  that  was  given 
in  another  case  quite  different,  viz.,  Master,  save  thyself.  In  a 
word,  he  was  for  my  retiring  into  the  country,  as  he  resolved  to 
do  himself,  with,  his  family ;  telling  me,  what  he  had,  it  seems, 
heard  abroad,  that  the  best  preparation  for  the  plague  was  to  run 
away  from  it.  As  to  my  argument  of  losing  my  trade,  my  goods, 
or  debts,  he  quite  confuted  me  :  he  told  me  the  same  thing,  which 
I  argued  for  my  staying,  viz.,  That  I  would  trust  God  with  my 
safety  and  health,  was  the  strongest  repulse  to  my  pretentions  of 
losing  my  trade  and  my  goods ;  For,  says  he,  is  it  not  as  reason- 
able that  you  should  trust  God  with  the  chance  or  risk  of  losing 
your  trade,  as  that  you  should  stay  in  so  eminent  a  point  of  danger, 
and  trust  him  with  your  life  ? 

I  could  not  argue  that  I  was  in  any  strait  as  to  a  place  where 
to  go,  having  several  friends  and  relations  in  Northamptonshire, 
whence  our  family  first  came  from ;  and  particularly,  I  had  an 
only  sister  in  Lincolnshire,  very  willing  to  receive  and  entertain 
me. 

My  brother,  who  had  already  sent  his  wife  and  two  children 


358  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

into  Bedfordshire,  and  resolved  to  follow  them,  pressed  my  going 
very  earnestly ;  and  I  had  once  resolved  to  comply  with  his  de- 
sires, but  at  that  time  could  get  no  horse  :  for  though  it  is  true,  all 
the  people  did  not  go  out  of  the  city  of  London ;  yet  I  may  ven- 
ture to  say,  that  in  a  manner  all  the  horses  did ;  for  there  was 
hardly  a  horse  to  be  bought  or  hired  in  the  whole  city,  for  some 
weeks.  Once  I  resolved  to  travel  on  foot  with  one  servant ;  and 
as  many  did,  lie  at  no  inn,  but  carry  a  soldier's  tent  with  us,  and 
so  lie  in  the  fields,  the  weather  being  very  warm,  and  no  danger 
from  taking  cold.  I  say,  as  many  did,  because  several  did  so  at 
the  last,  especially  those  who  had  been  in  the  armies,  in  the  war 
which  had  not  been  many  years  past :  and  I  must  needs  say,  that 
speaking  of  second  causes,  had  most  of  the  people  that  travelled 
done  so,  the  plague  had  not  been  carried  into  so  many  country 
towns  and  houses  as  it  was,  to  the  great  damage,  and  indeed  to 
the  ruin  of  abundance  of  people. 

But  then,  my  servant,  who  £  had  intended  to  take  down  with 
me,  deceived  me,  and  being  frighted  at  the  increase  of  the  dis- 
temper, and  not  knowing  when  I  should  go,  he  took  other  meas- 
ures, and  left  me,  so  I  was  put  off  for  that  time  ;  and  one  way  or 
other,  I  always  found  that  to  appoint  to  go  away,  was  always 
crossed  by  some  accident  or  other,  so  as  to  disappoint  and  put  it 
off  again ;  and  this  brings  in  a  story  which  otherwise  might  be 
thought  a  needless  digression,  viz.,  about  these  disappointments 
being  from  heaven. 

It  came  very  warmly  into  my  mind,  one  morning,  as  I  was 
musing  on  this  particular  thing,  that  as  nothing  attended  us  with- 
out the  direction  or  permission  of  Divine  Power,  so  these  disap- 
pointments must  have  something  in  them  extraordinary  :  and  I 
ought  to  consider  whether  it  did  not  evidently  point  out,  or  intimate 
to  me,  that  it  was  the  will  of  Heaven  I  should  not  go.  It  immedi- 
ately followed  in  my  thoughts,  that  it  really  was  from  God  that  I 
should  stay ;  he  was  able  effectually  to  preserve  me  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  death  and  danger  that  would  surround  me  ;  and  that,  if 
I  attempted  to  secure  myself  by  fleeing  from  my  habitation,  and 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  359 

acted  contrary  to  these  intimations,  which  I  believed  to  be  divine, 
it  was  a  kind  of  flying  from  God,  and  that  he  could  cause  his 
justice  to  overtake  me  when  and  where  he  thought  fit. 

These  thoughts  quite  turned  my  resolutions  again,  and  when  I 
came  to  discourse  with  my  brother  again,  I  told  him,  that  I 
inclined  to  stay  and  take  my  lot  in  that  station  in  which  God  had 
placed  me ;  and  that  it  seemed  to  be  made  more  especially  my 
duty,  on  the  account  of  what  I  have  said. 

My  brother,  though  a  very  religious  man  himself,  laughed  at  all 
I  had  suggested  about  its  being  an  intimation  from  heaven,  and 
told  me  several  stories  of  such  foolhardy  people,  as  he  called 
them,  as  I  was ;  that  I  ought  indeed  to  submit  to  it  as  a  work  of 
heaven,  if  I  had  been  any  way  disabled  by  distempers  or  diseases, 
and  that  then  not  being  able  to  go,  I  ought  to  acquiesce  in  the 
direction  of  Him,  who,  having  been  my  Maker,  had  an  undisputed 
right  of  sovereignty  in  disposing  of  me ;  and  that  then  there  had 
been  no  difficulty  to  determine  which  was  the  call  of  his  providence 
and  which  was  not ;  but  that  I  should  take  it  as  an  intimation 
from  heaven,  that  I  should  not  go  out  of  town,  only  because  I 
could  not  hire  a  horse  to  go,  or  my  fellow  was  run  away  that  was 
to  attend  me,  was  ridiculous,  since  at  the  same  time  I  had  my 
health  and  limbs,  and  other  servants,  and  might  with  ease  travel 
a  day  or  two  on  foot,  and  having  a  good  certificate  of  being  in 
perfect  health,  might  either  hire  a  horse,  or  take  post  on  the  road, 
as  I  thought  fit. 

Then  he  proceeded  to  tell  me  of  the  mischievous  consequences 
which  attend  the  presumption  of  the  Turks  and  Mahometans  in 
Asia,  and  in  other  places,  where  he  had  been  (for  my  brother, 
being  a  merchant,  was  a  few  years  before,  as  I  have  already 
observed,  returned  from  abroad,  coming  last  from  Lisbon),  and 
how,  presuming  upon  their  professed  predestinating  notions,  and 
of  every  man's  end  being  predetermined,  and  unalterably  before- 
hand decreed,  they  would  go  unconcerned  into  infected  places, 
and  converse  with  infected  persons,  by  which  means  they  died 
at  the  rate  of  ten  or  fifteen  thousand  a  week,  whereas  the  Euro- 


360  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

peans  or  Christian  merchants  who  kept  themselves  retired  and 
reserved,  generally  escaped  the  contagion. 

Upon  these  arguments  my  brother  changed  my  resolutions 
again,  and  I  began  to  resolve  to  go,  and  accordingly  made  all 
things  ready;  for,  in  short,  the  infection  increased  round  me, 
and  the  bills  were  risen  to  almost  seven  hundred  a  week,  and  my 
brother  told  me  he  would  venture  to  stay  no  longer.  I  desired 
him  to  let  me  consider  of  it  but  till  the  next  day,  and  I  would 
resolve ;  and  as  I  had  already  prepared  everything  as  well  as  I 
could,  as  to  my  business,  and  who  to  intrust  my  affairs  with,  I 
had  little  to  do  but  to  resolve. 

I  went  home  that  evening  greatly  oppressed  in  my  mind, 
irresolute,  and  not  knowing  what  to  do.  I  had  set  the  evening 
wholly  apart  to  consider  seriously  about  it,  and  was  all  alone  ;  for 
already  people  had,  as  it  were  by  a  general  consent,  taken  up  the 
custom  of  not  going  out  of  doors  after  sunset,  the  reasons  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  say  more  of  by  and  by. 

In  the  retirement  of  this  evening  I  endeavoured  to  resolve  first, 
what  was  my  duty  to  do,  and  I  stated  the  arguments  with  which 
my  brother  had  pressed  me  to  go  into  the  country,  and  I  set 
against  them  the  strong  impressions  which  I  had  on  my  mind 
for  staying ;  the  visible  call  I  seemed  to  have  from  the  particular 
circumstance  of  my  calling,  and  the  care  due  from  me  for  the 
preservation  of  my  effects,  which  were,  as  I  might  say,  my  estate  : 
also  the  intimations  which  I  thought  I  had  from  heaven,  that  to 
me  signified  a  kind  of  direction  to  venture,  and  it  occurred  to  me, 
that  if  I  had  what  I  call  a  direction  to  stay,  I  ought  to  suppose  it 
contained  a  promise  of  being  preserved,  if  I  obeyed. 

This  lay  close  to  me,  and  my  mind  seemed  more  and  more 
encouraged  to  stay  than  ever,  and  supported  with  a  secret  satis- 
faction, that  I  should  be  kept.  Add  to  this,  that  turning  over  the 
Bible,  which  lay  before  me,  and  while  my  thoughts  were  more 
than  ordinary  serious  upon  the  question,  I  cried  out,  Well,  I  know 
not  what  to  do,  Lord  direct  me  !  and  the  like ;  and  at  that 
juncture  I  happened  to  stop  turning  over  the  book,  at  the  gist 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  361 

Psalm,  and  casting  my  eye  on  the  second  verse,  I  read  to  the 
seventh  verse  exclusive ;  and  after  that,  included  the  icth,  as 
follows :  —  "I  will  say  of  the  Lord,  he  is  my  refuge,  and  my  for- 
tress, my  God,  in  him  will  I  trust.  Surely  he  shall  deliver  thee 
from  the  snare  of  the  fowler,  and  from  the  noisome  pestilence. 
He  shall  cover  thee  with  his  feathers,  and  under  his  wings  shall 
thou  trust :  his  truth  shall  be  thy  shield  and  buckler.  Thou 
shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the  terror  by  night,  nor  for  the  arrow  that 
flieth  by  day :  nor  for  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness,  nor 
for  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at  noon-day.  A  thousand  shall 
fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right  hand  ;  but  it  shall 
not  come  nigh  thee.  Only  with  thine  eyes  shalt  thou  behold  and 
see  the  reward  of  the  wicked.  Because  thou  hast  made  the  Lord 
which  is  my  refuge,  even  the  most  high,  thy  habitation  :  there 
shall  no  evil  befall  thee,  neither  shall  any  plague  come  nigh  thy 
dwelling,"  &c. 

I  scarce  need  tell  the  reader  that  from  that  moment  I  resolved 
that  I  would  stay  in  the  town,  and  casting  myself  entirely  upon 
the  goodness  and  protection  of  the  Almighty,  would  not  seek  any 
other  shelter  whatever ;  and  that  as  my  times  were  in  his  hands, 
he  was  as  able  to  keep  me  in  a  time  of  the  infection,  as  in  a  time 
of  health  ;  and  if  he  did  not  think  fit  to  deliver  me,  still  I  was  in 
his  hands,  and  it  was  meet  he  should  do  with  me  as  should  seem 
good  to  him. 

With  this  resolution  I  went  to  bed  ;  and  I  was  farther  confirmed 
in  it  the  next  day,  by  the  woman  being  taken  ill  with  whom  I  had 
intended  to  intrust  my  house  and  all  my  affairs.  But  I  had  a 
farther  obligation  laid  on  me  on  the  same  side,  for  the  next  day 
I  found  myself  very  much  out  of  order  also ;  so  that  if  I  would 
have  gone  away,  I  could  not,  and  I  continued  ill  three  or  four 
days,  and  this  entirely  determined  my  stay ;  so  I  took  my  leave 
of  my  brother,  who  went  away  to  Dorking,  in  Surrey,  and  after- 
wards fetched  around  farther  into  Buckinghamshire,  or  Bedford- 
shire, to  a  retreat  he  had  found  out  there  for  his  family. 

It  was  a  very  ill  time  to  be  sick  in,  for  if  any  one  complained,  it 


362  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

was  immediately  said  he  had  the  plague  ;  and  though  I  had  in- 
deed no  symptoms  of  that  distemper,  yet  being  very  ill,  both  in 
my  head  and  in  my  stomach,  I  was  not  without  apprehension  that 
I  really  was  infected,  but  in  about  three  days  I  grew  better,  the 
third  night  I  rested  well,  sweated  a  little,  and  was  much  refreshed  ; 
the  apprehensions  of  its  being  the  infection  went  also  quite  away 
with  my  illness,  and  I  went  about  my  business  as  usual. 

These  things  however,  put  off  all  my  thoughts  of  going  into  the 
country  *,  and  my  brother  also  being  gone,  I  had  no  more  debate 
either  with  him,  or  with  myself,  on  that  subject. 

It  was  now  mid  July,  and  the  plague,  which  had  chiefly  raged 
at  the  other  end  of  the  town,  and  as  I  said  before,  in  the  parishes 
of  St.  Giles's,  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  and  towards  Westminster, 
began  now  to  come  eastward,  towards  the  part  where  I  lived.  It 
was  to  be  observed,  indeed,  that  it  did  not  come  straight  on 
towards  us ;  for  the  city,  that  is  to  say  within  the  walls,  was  indif- 
ferent healthy  still ;  nor  was  it  got  then  very  much  over  the  water 
into  Southwark;  for  though  there  died  that  week  1268  of  all  dis- 
tempers, whereof  it  might  be  supposed  above  nine  hundred  died 
of  the  plague ;  yet  there  was  but  twenty-eight  in  the  whole  city, 
within  the  walls,  and  but  nineteen  in  Southwark,  Lambeth  parish 
included ;  whereas  in  the  parishes  of  St.  Giles,  and  St.  Martin's  in 
the  Fields  alone,  there  died  four  hundred  and  twenty-one. 

But  we  perceived  the  infection  kept  chiefly  in  the  out  parishes, 
which  being  very  populous,  and  fuller  also  of  poor,  the  distemper 
found  more  to  prey  upon  than  in  the  city,  as  I  shall  observe  after- 
ward ;  we  perceived,  I  say,  the  distemper  to  draw  our  way,  viz., 
by  the  parishes  of  Clerkenwell,  Cripplegate,  Shoreditch,  and  Bish- 
opsgate  ;  which  last  two  parishes  joining  to  Aldgate,  Whitechapel, 
and  Stepney,  the  infection  came  at  length  to  spread  its  utmost  rage 
and  violence  in  those  parts,  even  when  it  abated  at  the  western 
parishes  where  it  began. 

It  was  very  strange  to  observe,  that  in  this  particular  week, 
from  the  4th  to  the  nth  of  July,  when,  as  I  have  observed,  there 
died  near  four  hundred  of  the  plague  in  the  parishes  of  St.  Mar- 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  363 

tin's  and  St.  Giles's  in  the  Fields  only,  there  died  in  the  parish  of 
Aldgate  but  four,  in  the  parish  of  Whitechapel  three,  in  the  parish 
of  Stepney  but  one. 

Likewise  in  the  next  week,  from  the  nth  of  July  to  the  i2th, 
when  the  week's  bill  was  1761,  yet  there  died  no  more  of  the 
plague,  on  the  whole  Southwark  side  of  the'water,  than  sixteen. 

But  this  face  of  things  soon  changed,  and  it  began  to  thicken  in 
Cripplegate  parish  especially,  and  in  Clerkenwell ;  so  that  by  the 
second  week  in  August,  Cripplegate  parish  alone  buried  eight 
hundred  and  eighty-six,  and  Clerkenwell  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  ;  of  the  first,  eight  hundred  and  fifty  might  well  be  reckoned 
to  die  of  the  plague ;  and  of  the  last,  the  bill  itself  said,  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  were  of  the  plague. 

During  the  month  of  July,  and  while,  as  I  have  observed,  our 
part  of  the  town  seemed  to  be  spared  in  comparison  of  the  west 
part,  I  went  ordinarily  about  the  streets,  as  my  business  required, 
and  particularly  went  gradually  once  in  a  day,  or  in  two  days,  into 
the  city,  to  my  brother's  house,  which  he  had  given  me  charge  of, 
and  to  see  it  was  safe ;  and  having  the  key  in  my  pocket  I  used 
to  go  into  the  house,  and  over  most  of  the  rooms,  to  see  that  all 
was  well ;  for  though  it  be  something  wonderful  to  tell,  that 
any  should  have  hearts  so  hardened,  in  the  midst  of  such  a 
calamity,  as  to  rob  and  steal ;  yet,  certain  it  is,  that  all  sorts  of 
villanies,  and  even  levities  and  debaucheries,  were  then  practised 
in  the  town,  as  openly  as  ever,  I  will  not  say  quite  as  frequently, 
because  the  number  of  people  were  many  ways  lessened. 

But  the  city  itself  began  now  to  be  visited  too,  I  mean  within 
the  walls  ;  but  the  number  of  people  there  were,  indeed,  extremely 
lessened,  by  so  great  a  multitude  having  been  gone  into  the  coun- 
try ;  and  even  all  this  month  of  July  they  continued  to  flee,  though 
not  in  such  multitudes  as  formerly.  In  August,  indeed,  they  fled 
in  such  a  manner,  that  I  began  to  think  there  would  be  really  none 
but  magistrates  and  servants  left  in  the  city. 

As  they  fled  now  out  of  the  city,  so  I  should  observe,  that  the 
court  removed  early,  viz.,  in  the  month  of  June,  and  went  to 


364  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

Oxford,  where  it  pleased  God  to  preserve  them ;  and  the  distem- 
per did  not,  as  I  heard  of,  so  much  as  touch  them ;  for  which 
I  cannot  say,  that  I  ever  saw  they  showed  any  great  token  of 
thankfulness,  and  hardly  anything  of  reformation,  though  they  did 
not  want  being  told  that  their  crying  vices  might,  without  breach 
of  charity,  be  said  to  have  gone  far  in  bringing  that  terrible  judg- 
ment upon  the  whole  nation. 

The  face  of  London  was  now  indeed  strangely  altered,  I  mean 
the  whole  mass  of  buildings,  city,  liberties,  suburbs,  Westminster, 
Southvvark,  and  altogether ;  for,  as  to  the  particular  part  called  the 
city,  or  within  the  walls,  that  was  not  yet  much  infected ;  but  in 
the  whole,  the  face  of  things,  I  say,  was  much  altered ;  sorrow  and 
sadness  sat  upon  every  face,  and  though  some  part  were  not  yet 
overwhelmed,  yet  all  looked  deeply  concerned ;  and  as  we  saw  it 
apparently  coming  on,  so  every  one  looked  on  himself,  and  his 
family,  as  in  the  utmost  danger :  were  it  possible  to  represent 
those  times  exactly,  to  those  that  did  not  see  them,  and  give  the 
reader  due  ideas  of  the  horror  that  everywhere  presented  itself,  it 
must  make  just  impressions  upon  their  minds,  and  fill  them  with 
surprise.  London  might  well  be  said  to  be  all  in  tears ;  the 
mourners  did  not  go  about  the  streets  indeed,  for  nobody  put  on 
black,  or  made  a  formal  dress  of  mourning  for  their  nearest  friends  ; 
but  the  voice  of  mourning  was  truly  heard  in  the  streets;  the 
shrieks  of  women  and  children  at  the  windows  and  doors  of  their 
houses,  where  their  nearest  relations  were,  perhaps  dying,  or  just 
dead,  were  so  frequent  to  be  heard,  as  we  passed  the  streets,  that 
it  was  enough  to  pierce  the  stoutest  heart  in  the  world  to  hear 
them.  Tears  and  lamentations  were  seen  almost  in  every  house, 
especially  in  the  first  part  of  the  visitation ;  for  towards  the  latter 
end  men's  hearts  were  hardened,  and  death  was  so  always  before 
their  eyes,  that  they  did  not  so  much  concern  themselves  for  the 
loss  of  their  friends,  expecting  that  themselves  should  be  sum- 
moned the  next  hour. 

Business  led  me  out  sometimes  to  the  other  end  of  the  town, 
even  when  the  sickness  was  chiefly  there  ;  and  as  the  thing  was 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  365 

new  to  me,  as  well  as  to  everybody  else,  it  was  a  most  surprising 
thing  to  see  those  streets,  which  were  usually  so  thronged,  now 
grown  desolate,  and  so  few  people  to  be  seen  in  them,  that  if  I 
had  been  a  stranger,  and  at  a  loss  for  my  way,  I  might  sometimes 
have  gone  the  length  of  a  whole  street,  I  mean  of  the  by-streets, 
and  see 2  nobody  to  dvect  me,  except  watchmen  set  at  the  doors 
of  such  houses  as  were  shut  up,  of  which  I  shall  speak  presently. 

One  day,  being  at  that  part  of  the  town,  on  some  special  busi- 
ness, curiosity  led  me  to  observe  things  more  than  usually ;  and 
indeed  I  walked  a  great  way  where  I  had  no  business ;  I  went  up 
Holborn,  and  there  the  street  was  full  of  people  ;  but  they  walked 
in  the  middle  of  the  great  street,  neither  on  one  side  or  other, 
because,  as  I  suppose,  they  would  not  mingle  with  anybody  that 
came  out  of  houses,  or  meet  with  smells  and  scents  from  houses 
that  might  be  infected. 

The  inns  of  court  were  all  shut  up,  nor  were  very  many  of 
the  lawyers  in  the  Temple,  or  Lincoln's-inn,  or  Gray's-inn,  to  be 
seen  there.  Everybody  was  at  peace,  there  was  no  occasion  for 
lawyers ;  besides,  it  being  in  the  time  of  the  vacation  too,  they 
were  generally  gone  into  the  country.  Whole  rows  of  houses  in 
some  places,  were  shut  close  up,  the  inhabitants  all  fled,  and  only 
a  watchman  or  two  left. 

When  I  speak  of  rows  of  houses  being  shut  up,  I  do  not  mean 
shut  up  by  the  magistrates ;  but  that  great  numbers  of  persons 
followed  the  court,  by  the  necessity  of  their  employments,  and 
other  dependencies ;  and  as  others  retired,  really  frighted  with 
the  distemper,  it  was  a  mere  desolating  of  some  of  the  streets  : 
but  the  fright  was  not  yet  near  so  great  in  the  city,  abstractedly  so 
called ;  and  particularly  because,  though  they  were  at  first  in  a 
most  inexpressible  consternation,  yet,  as  I  have  observed  that 
the  distemper  intermitted  often  at  first,  so  they  were  as  it  were 
alarmed,  and  unalarmed  again,  and  this  several  times,  till  it  began 
to  be  familiar  to  them  ;  and  that  even  when  it  appeared  violent, 
yet  seeing  it  did  not  presently  spread  into  the  city,  or  the  east  or 

2  Defoe  does  not  always  observe  grammatical  correctness. 


366  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

south  parts,  the  people  began  to  take  courage,  and  to  be,  as  I  may 
say,  a  little  hardened.  It  is  true,  a  vast  many  people  fled,  as  I  have 
observed,  yet  they  were  chiefly  from  the  west  end  of  the  town, 
and  from  that  we  call  the  heart  of  the  city,  that  is  to  say,  among 
the  wealthiest  of  the  people ;  and  such  persons  as  were  unin- 
cumbered  with  trades  and  business.  But  of  the  rest,  the  gener- 
ality stayed,  and  seemed  to  abide  the  worst ;  so  that  in  the  place 
we  call  the  liberties,  and  in  the  suburbs,  in  Southvvark,  and  in  the 
east  part,  such  as  Wapping,  Ratcliff,  Stepney,  Rotherhithe,  and  the 
like,  the  people  generally  stayed,  except  here  and  there  a  few 
wealthy  families,  who,  as  above,  did  not  depend  upon  their 
business. 

It  must  not  be  forgot  here,  that  the  city  and  suburbs  were  prodig- 
iously full  of  people  at  the  time  of  this  visitation,  I  mean  at  the 
time  that  it  began ;  for  though  I  have  lived  to  see  a  farther 
increase,  and  mighty  throngs  of  people  settling  in  London,  more 
than  ever ;  yet  we  had  always  a  notion  that  numbers  of  people, 
which,  the  wars  being  over,  the  armies  disbanded,  and  the  royal 
family  and  the  monarchy  being  restored,  had  flocked  to  London 
to  settle  in  business,  or  to  depend  upon,  and  attend  the  court  for 
rewards  of  services,  preferments,  and  the  like,  was  2  such,  that  the 
town  was  computed  to  have  in  it  above  a  hundred  thousand 
people  more  than  ever  it  held  before ;  nay,  some  took  upon  them 
to  say,  it  had  twice  as  many,  because  all  the  ruined  families  of  the 
royal  party  flocked  hither ;  all  the  soldiers  set  up  trades  here, 
and  abundance  of  families  settled  here ;  again,  the  court  brought 
with  it  a  great  flux  of  pride  and  new  fashions ;  all  people  were 
gay  and  luxurious,  and  the  joy  of  the  restoration  had  brought  a 
vast  many  families  to  London. 

But  I  must  go  back  again  to  the  beginning  of  this  surprising 
time ;  while  the  fears  of  the  people  were  young,  they  were  in- 
creased strangely  by  several  odd  accidents,  which  put  altogether,  it 
was  really  a  wonder  the  whole  body  of  the  people  did  not  rise  as 
one  man  and  abandon  their  dwellings,  leaving  the  place  as  a 
space  of  ground  designed  by  heaven  for  an  Akeldama,  doomed  to 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  367 

be  destroyed  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  that  all  that  would 
be  found  in  it  would  perish  with  it.  I  shall  name  but  a  few  of 
these  things ;  but  sure  they  were  so  many,  and  so  many  wizards 
and  cunning  people  propagating  them,  that  I  have  often  won- 
dered there  was  any  (women  especially)  left  behind. 

In  the  first  place,  a  blazing  star  or  comet  appeared  for  several 
months  before  the  plague,  as  there  did  the  year  after,  another,  a 
little  before  the  fire ;  the  old  women,  and  the  phlegmatic  hypo- 
chondriac part  of  the  other  sex,  whom  I  could  almost  call  old 
women  too,  remarked,  especially  afterward,  though  not  till  both 
those  judgments  were  over,  that  those  two  comets  passed  directly 
over  the  city,  and  that  so  very  near  the  houses  that  it  was  plain 
they  imported  something  peculiar  to  the  city  alone.  That  the 
comet  before  the  pestilence  was  of  a  faint,  dull,  languid  colour,  and 
its  motion  very  heavy,  solemn,  and  slow ;  but  that  the  comet  before 
the  fire,  was  bright  and  sparkling,  or,  as  others  said,  flaming,  and 
its  motion  swift  and  furious,  and  that,  accordingly,  one  foretold  a 
heavy  judgment,  slow  but  severe,  terrible,  and  frightful,  as  was  the 
plague*.  But  the  other  foretold  a  stroke,  sudden,  swift  and  fiery,  as 
was  the  conflagration  ;  nay,  so  particular  some  people  were,  that  as 
they  looked  upon  that  comet  preceding  the  fire,3  they  fancied  that 
they  not  only  saw  it  pass  swiftly  and  fiercely,  and  could  perceive 
the  motion  with  their  eye,  but  even  they  heard  it,  that  it  made  a 
rushing  mighty  noise,  fierce  and  terrible,  though  at  a  distance, 
and  but  just  perceivable. 

I  saw  both  these  stars,  and  I  must  confess,  had  had  so  much  of 
the  common  notion  of  such  things  in  my  head,  that  I  was  apt  to 
look  upon  them  as  the  forerunners  and  warnings  of  God's  judg- 
ments, and  especially  when  the  plague  had  followed  the  first,  I 
yet  saw  another  of  the  like  kind,  I  could  not  but  say  God  had  not 
yet  sufficiently  scourged  the  city. 

The  apprehensions  of  the  people  were  likewise  strangely  in- 
creased by  the  error  of  the  times,  in  which,  I  think,  the  people, 
from  what  principle  I  cannot  imagine,  were  more  addicted  to 

•The  great  fire  of  1666. 


368  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

prophecies,  and  astrological  conjurations,  dreams,  and  old  wives' 
tales,  than  ever  they  were  before  or  since  :  whether  this  unhappy 
temper  was  originally  raised  by  the  follies  of  some  people  who  got 
money  by  it,  that  is  to  say,  by  printing  predictions  and  prognosti- 
cations, I  know  not,  but  certain  it  is,  books  frighted  them  terribly ; 
such  as  Lily's  Almanack,  Gadbury's  Astrological  Predictions,  Poor 
Robin's  Almanack,  and  the  like;  also  several  pretended  religious 
books,  one  entitled,  Come  out  of  Her  my  People,  lest  ye  be  par- 
taker of  her  Plagues ;  another  called,  Fair  Warning ;  another 
Britain's  Remembrancer,  and  many  such ;  all,  or  most  part  of 
which,  foretold  directly  or  covertly,  the  ruin  of  the  city ;  nay,  some 
were  so  enthusiastically  bold,  as  to  run  about  the  streets  with  their 
oral  predictions,  pretending  they  were  sent  to  preach  to  the  city ; 
and  one  in  particular,  who,  like  Jonah  to  Nineveh,  cried  in  the 
streets,  Yet  forty  days  and  London  shall  be  destroyed.  I  will  not 
be  positive  whether  he  said  yet  forty  days,  or  yet  a  few  days. 
Another  ran  about  naked,  except  a  pair  of  drawers  about  his 
waist,  crying  day  and  night,  like  a  man  that  Josephus  mentions, 
who  cried,  Woe  to  Jerusalem  !  a  little  before  the  destruction  of 
that  city ;  so  this  poor  naked  creature  cried,  O !  the  great  and  the 
dreadful  God  !  and  said  no  more,  but  repeated  those  words  con- 
tinually, with  a  voice  and  countenance  full  of  horror,  a  swift  pace, 
and  nobody  could  ever  find  him  to  stop,  or  rest,  or  take  any 
sustenance,  at  least  that  ever  I  could  hear  of.  I  met  this  poor 
creature  several  times  in  the  streets,  and  would  have  spoke  to  him, 
but  he  would  not  enter  into  speech  with  me,  or  any  one  else  ;  but 
kept  on  his  dismal  cries  continually. 

These  things  terrified  the  people  to  the  last  degree  ;  and  espe- 
cially when  two  or  three  times,  as  I  have  mentioned  already,  they 
found  one  or  two  in  the  bills,  dead  of  the  plague  at  St.  Giles's. 
Next  to  these  public  things,  were  the  dreams  of  old  women ;  or, 
I  should  say,  the  interpretation  of  old  women  upon  other  peoples' 
dreams ;  and  these  put  abundance  of  people  even  out  of  their 
wits.  Some  heard  voices  warning  them  to  be  gone,  for  that  there 
would  be  such  a  plague  in  London,  so  that  the  living  would  not 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  369 

be  able  to  bury  the  dead ;  others  saw  apparitions  in  the  air,  and 
I  must  be  allowed  to  say  of  both,  I  hope  without  breach  of  charity, 
that  they  heard  voices  that  never  spake,  and  saw  sights  that  never 
appeared ;  but  the  imagination  of  the  people  was  really  turned 
wayward  and  possessed ;  and  no  wonder  if  they  who  were  poring 
continually  at  the  clouds,  saw  shapes  and  figures,  representations 
and  appearances,  which  had  nothing  in  them  but  air  and  vapour. 
Here  they  told  us  they  saw  a  flaming  sword  held  in  a  hand,  com- 
ing out  of  a  cloud,  with  a  point  hanging  directly  over  the  city. 
There  they  saw  hearses  and  coffins  in  the  air  carrying  to  be 
buried.  And  there  again,  heaps  of  dead  bodies  lying  unburied 
and  the  like ;  just  as  the  imagination  of  the  poor  terrified  people 
furnished  them  with  matter  to  work  upon. 

So  hypochondriac  fancies  represent 
Ships,  armies,  battles  in  the  firmament; 
Till  steady  eyes  the  exhalations  solve, 
And  all  to  its  first  matter,  cloud,  resolve. 

I  could  fill  this  account  with  the  strange  relations  such  people 
give  every  day  of  what  they  have  seen ;  and  every  one  was  so 
positive  of  their  having  seen  what  they  pretended  to  see,  that  there 
was  no  contradicting  them  without  breach  of  friendship,  or  being 
accounted  rude  and  unmannerly  on  the  one  hand,  and  profane 
and  impenetrable  on  the  other.  One  time  before  the  plague 
was  begun,  otherwise  than  as  I  have  said  in  St.  Giles's,  I  think  it 
was  in  March,  seeing  a  crowd  of  people  in  the  street,  I  joined 
with  them  to  satisfy  my  curiosity,  and  found  them  all  staring  up 
into  the  air  to  see  what  a  woman  told  them  appeared  plain  to  her, 
which  was  an  angel  clothed  in  white,  with  a  fiery  sword  in  his 
hand,  waving  it  or  brandishing  it  over  his  head.  She  described 
every  part  of  the  figure  to  the  life,  showed  them  the  motion  and 
the  form,  and  the  poor  people  came  into  it  so  eagerly  and  with  so 
much  readiness  :  Yes  !  I  see  it  all  plainly,  says  one,  there's  the 
sword  as  plain  as  can  be ;  another  saw  the  angel ;  one  saw  his 
very  face,  and  cried  out,  What  a  glorious  creature  he  was  !  One 


370  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

saw  one  thing,  and  one  another.  I  looked  as  earnestly  as  the 
rest,  but,  perhaps,  not  with  so  much  willingness  to  be  imposed 
upon ;  and  I  said,  indeed,  that  I  could  see  nothing  but  a  white 
cloud,  bright  on  one  side,  by  the  shining  of  the  sun  upon  the  other 
part.  The  woman  endeavoured  to  show  it  to  me,  but  could  not 
make  me  confess  that  I  saw  it,  which,  indeed,  if  I  had,  I  must 
have  lied  :  but  the  woman  turning  to  me  looked  me  in  the  face 
and  fancied  I  laughed,  in  which  her  imagination  deceived  her  too, 
for  I  really  did  not  laugh,  but  was  seriously  reflecting  how  the  poor 
people  were  terrified  by  the  force  of  their  own  imagination.  How- 
ever, she  turned  to  me,  called  me  profane  fellow,  and  a  scoffer, 
told  me  that  it  was  a  time  of  God's  anger,  and  dreadful  judgments 
were  approaching,  and  that  despisers,  such  as  I,  should  wander 
\sic\  and  perish. 

The  people  about  her  seemed  disgusted  as  well  as  she,  and  I 
found  there  was  no  persuading  them  that  I  did  not  laugh  at  them, 
and  that  I  should  be  rather  mobbed  by  them  than  be  able  to 
undeceive  them.  So  I  left  them,  and  this  appearance  passed  for 
as  real  as  the  blazing  star  itself. 

Another  encounter  I  had  in  the  open  day  also ;  and  this  was  in 
going  through  a  narrow  passage  from  Petty- France  into  Bishops- 
gate  churchyard,  by  a  row  of  almshouses ;  there  are  two  church- 
yards to  Bishopsgate  church  or  parish,  one  we  go  over  to  pass 
from  the  place  called  Petty-France  into  Bishopsgate  street,  com- 
ing out  just  by  the  church  door,  the  other  is  on  the  side  of  the 
narrow  passage  where  the  almshouses  are  on  the  left,  and  a  dwarf 
wall  with  a  palisade  on  it  on  the  right  hand,  and  the  city  wall  on 
the  other  side  more  to  the  right. 

In  this  narrow  passage  stands  a  man  looking  through  the  pali- 
sades into  the  burying-place,  and  as  many  people  as  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  place  would  admit  to  stop  without  hindering  the  pas- 
sage of  others,  and  he  was  talking  mighty  eagerly  to  them,  and 
pointing  now  to  one  place,  then  to  another,  and  affirming  that  he 
saw  a  ghost  walking  upon  such  a  gravestone  there  ;  he  described 
the  shape,  the  posture,  and  the  movement  of  it  so  exactly,  that  it 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  371 

was  the  greatest  amazement  to  him  in  the  world  that  everybody 
did  not  see  it  as  well  as  he.  On  a  sudden  he  would  cry,  There  it 
is  !  Now  it  comes  this  way  !  then,  Tis  turned  back  !  till  at  length 
he  persuaded  the  people  into  so  firm  a  belief  of  it,  that  one  fancied 
he  saw  it ;  and  thus  he  came  every  day  making  a  strange  hubbub, 
considering  it  was  so  narrow  a  passage,  till  Bishopsgate  clock 
struck  eleven,  and  then  the  ghost  would  seem  to  start,  and,  as  if  he 
were  called  away,  disappeared  on  a  sudden. 

I  looked  earnestly  every  way  and  at  the  very  moment  that  this 
man  directed,  but  could  not  see  the  least  appearance  of  anything, 
but  so  positive  was  this  poor  man  that  he  gave  them  vapours  in 
abundance,  and  sent  them  away  trembling  and  frightened,  till  at 
length  few  people  that  knew  of  it  cared  to  go  through  that  passage, 
and  hardly  anybody  by  night  on  any  account  whatever. 

This  ghost,  as  the  poor  man  affirmed,  made  signs  to  the  houses, 
and  to  the  ground,  and  to  the  people,  plainly  intimating,  or  else 
they  so  understanding  it,  that  abundance  of  people  should  come 
to  be  buried  in  that  churchyard,  as  indeed  happened,  but  then 
he  saw  such  aspects,  I  must  acknowledge  I  never  believed,  nor 
could  I  see  anything  of  it  myself,  though  I  looked  most  earnestly 
to  see  it  if  possible. 

Some  endeavours  were  used  to  suppress  the  printing  of  such 
books  as  terrified  the  people,  and  to  frighten  the  dispensers  of 
them,  some  of  whom  were  taken  up,  but  nothing  done  in  it,  as  I 
am  informed,  the  government  being  unwilling  to  exasperate  the 
people,  who  were,  as  I  may  say,  all  out  of  their  wits  already. 
Neither  can  I  acquit  those  ministers  that,  in  their  sermons,  rather 
sunk  than  lifted  up  the  hearts  of  their  hearers ;  many  of  them,  I 
doubt  not,  did  it  for  the  strengthening  the  resolution  of  the  people, 
and  especially  for  quickening  them  to  repentance ;  but  it  cer- 
tainly answered  not  their  end,  at  least  not  in  proportion  to  the 
injury  it  did  another  way. 

One  mischief  always  introduces  another ;  these  terrors  and  ap- 
prehensions of  the  people  led  them  to  a  thousand  weak,  foolish, 
and  wicked  things,  which  they  wanted  not  a  sort  of  people  really 


372  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

wicked  to  encourage  them  to,  and  this  was  running  about  to 
fortune-tellers,  cunning  men,  and  astrologers,  to  know  their  for- 
tunes, or,  as  it  is  vulgarly  expressed,  to  have  their  fortunes  told 
them,  their  nativities  calculated,  and  the  like,  and  this  folly  pres- 
ently made  the  town  swarm  with  a  wicked  generation  of  pretend- 
ers to  magic ;  to  the  black  art,  as  they  called  it,  and  I  know  not 
what ;  nay,  to  a  thousand  worse  dealings  with  the  devil  than  they 
were  really  guilty  of,  and  this  trade  grew  so  open  and  so  generally 
practised,  that  it  became  common  to  have  signs  and  inscriptions 
set  up  at  doors,  Here  lives  a  fortune-teller ;  Here  lives  an 
astrologer ;  Here  you  may  have  your  nativity  calculated  ;  and  the 
like ;  and  friar  Bacon's 4  brazen-head,  which  was  the  usual  sign  of 
these  peoples'  dwellings,  was  to  be  seen  almost  in  every  street,  or 
else  the  sign  of  Mother  Shipton,  or  of  Merlin's  head,  and  the  like. 

With  what  blind,  absurd,  and  ridiculous  stuff  these  oracles  of  the 
devil  pleased  and  satisfied  the  people,  I  really  know  not,  but  cer- 
tain it  is,  that  innumerable  attendants  crowded  about  their  doors 
every  day  :  and  if  but  a  grave  fellow  in  a  velvet  jacket,  a  band,  and 
a  black  cloak,  which  was  the  habit  those  quack-conjurers  gener- 
ally went  in,  was  but  seen  in  the  streets,  the  people  would  follow 
them  in  crowds  and  ask  them  questions  as  they  went  along. 

The  case  of  poor  servants  was  very  dismal,  as  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  mention  again,  by  and  by ;  for  it  was  apparent  a  prodig- 
ious number  of  them  would  be  turned  away,  and  it  was  so,  and 
of  them  abundance  perished,  and  particularly  those  whom  these 
false  prophets  flattered  with  hopes  that  they  should  be  kept  in 
their  services  and  carried  with  their  masters  and  mistresses  into 
the  country ;  and  had  not  public  charity  provided  for  these  poor 
creatures,  whose  number  was  exceeding  great,  and  in  all  cases 
of  this  nature  must  be  so,  they  would  have  been  in  the  worst  con- 
dition of  any  people  in  the  city. 

These  things  agitated  the  minds  of  the  common  people  for  many 
months  while  the  first  apprehensions  were  upon  them,  and  while 

*  Roger  Bacon,  the  philosopher  (1214-92),  who  was  thought  to  practise 
magic.  See  Greene's  play,  "  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,"  Scene  XI. 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  373 

the  plague  was  not,  as  I  may  say,  yet  broken  out ;  but  I  must 
also  not  forget  that  the  more  serious  part  of  the  inhabitants  be- 
haved after  another  manner;  the  government  encouraged  their 
devotion,  and  appointed  public  prayers  and  days  of  fasting  and 
humiliation,  to  make  public  confession  of  sin,  and  implore  the 
mercy  of  God,  to  avert  the  dreadful  judgment  which  hangs  over 
their  heads ;  and,  it  is  not  to  be  expressed  with  what  alacrity  the 
people  of  all  persuasions  embraced  the  occasion,  how  they  flocked 
to  the  churches  and  meetings,  and  they  were  all  so  thronged  that 
there  was  often  no  coming  near,  even  to  the  very  doors  of  the 
largest  churches  :  also,  there  were  daily  prayers  appointed  morn- 
ing and  evening  at  several  churches,  and  days  of  private  praying 
at  other  places,  at  all  which  the  people  attended,  I  say,  with  an 
uncommon  devotion ;  several  private  families  also,  as  well  of  one 
opinion  as  another,  kept  family  fasts,  to  which  they  admitted  their 
near  relations  only;  so  that,  in  a  word,  those  people  who  were 
really  serious  and  religious,  applied  themselves  in  a  truly  Christian 
manner  to  the  proper  work  of  repentance  and  humiliation,  as  a 
Christian  people  ought  to  do. 

Again,  the  public  showed  that  they  would  bear  their  share  in 
these  things ;  the  very  court,  which  was  then  gay  and  luxurious, 
put  on  a  face  of  just  concern  for  the  public  danger.  All  the  plays 
and  interludes,  which,  after  the  manner  of  the  French  court,  had 
been  set  up  and  began  to  increase  among  us,  were  forbid  to  act ; 
the  gaming-tables,  public  dancing  rooms,  and  music  houses,  which 
multiplied  and  began  to  debauch  the  manners  of  the  people,  were 
shut  up  and  suppressed ;  and  the  jack-puddings,  merry-andrews, 
puppet-shows,  rope-dancers,  and  such-like  doings,  which  had 
bewitched  the  common  people,  shut  their  shops,  finding  indeed 
no  trade,  for  the  minds  of  the  people  were  agitated  with  other 
things,  and  a  kind  of  sadness  and  horror  at  these  things  sat  upon 
the  countenances  even  of  the  common  people ;  death  was  before 
their  eyes,  and  everybody  began  to  think  of  their  graves,  not  of 
mirth  and  diversions. 

But  even  these  wholesome  reflections,  which,  rightly  managed, 


374  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

would  have  most  happily  led  the  people  to  fall  upon  their  knees, 
make  confession  of  their  sins,  and  look  up  to  their  merciful  Saviour 
for  pardon,  imploring  his  compassion  on  them  in  >such  a  time  of 
their  distress,  by  which  we  might  have  been  as  a  second  Nineveh, 
had  a  quite  contrary  extreme  in  the  common  people  :  who,  igno- 
rant and  stupid  in  their  reflections,  as  they  were  brutishly  wicked 
and  thoughtless  before,  were  now  led  by  their  fright  to  extremes 
of  folly ;  and,  as  I  said  before,  that  they  ran  to  conjurers  and 
witches  and  all  sorts  of  deceivers,  to  know  what  should  become  of 
them,  who  fed  their  fears,  and  kept  them  always  alarmed  and 
awake,  on  purpose  to  delude  them  and  pick  their  pockets,  so  they 
were  as  mad  upon  their  running  after  quacks  and  mountebanks, 
and  every  practising  old  woman  for  medicines  and  remedies,  stor- 
ing themselves  with  such  multitudes  of  pills,  potions,  and  preserva- 
tives, as  they  were  called,  that  they  not  only  spent  their  money 
but  poisoned  themselves  beforehand  for  fear  of  the  poison  of  the 
infection,  and  prepared  their  bodies  for  the  plague  instead  of  pre- 
serving them  against  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  incredible, 
and  scarce  to  be  imagined,  how  the  posts  of  houses  and  corners  of 
streets  were  plastered  over  with  doctors'  bills,  and  papers  of  igno- 
rant fellows  quacking  and  tampering  in  physic,  and  inviting  people 
to  come  to  them  for  remedies,  which  was  generally  set  off  with 
such  flourishes  as  these,  viz.,  INFALLIBLE  preventitive  pills  against 
the  plague.  NEVER-FAILING  preservatives  against  the  infection. 
SOVEREIGN  cordials  against  the  corruption  of  air.  EXACT  regula- 
tion for  the  conduct  of  the  body  in  case  of  infection.  ANTIPESTI- 
LENTIAL  pills.  INCOMPARABLE  drink  against  the  plague,  never  found 
out  before.  An  UNIVERSAL  remedy  for  the  plague.  The  ONLY 
TRUE  plague-water.  The  ROYAL  ANTIDOTE  against  all  kinds  of 
infection  :  and  such  a  number  more  that  I  cannot  reckon  up,  and 
if  I  could,  would  fill  a  book  of  themselves  to  set  them  down. 

Others  set  up  bills  to  summon  people  to  their  lodgings  for 
direction  and  advice  in  the  case  of  infection ;  these  had  specious 
titles  also,  such  as  these  : 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  375 

An  eminent  High-Dutch  physician,  newly  come  over  from  Hol- 
land, where  he  resided  during  all  the  time  of  the  great  plague, 
last  year,  in  Amsterdam,  and  cured  multitudes  of  people  that 
actually  had  the  plague  upon  them. 

An  Italian  gentlewoman  just  arrived  from  Naples,  having  a  choice 
secret  to  prevent  infection,  which  she  found  out  by  her  great 
experience,  and  did  wonderful  cures  with  it  in  the  late  plague 
there,  wherein  there  died  20,000  in  one  day. 

An  ancient  gentlewoman  having  practised  with  great  success  in  the 
late  plague  in  this  city,  anno  1636,  gives  her  advice  only  to  the 
female  sex.  To  be  spoken  with,  &c. 

An  experienced  physician,  who  has  long  studied  the  doctrine  of 
antidotes  against  all  sorts  of  poison  and  infection,  has,  after 
forty  years'  practice,  arrived  at  such  skill  as  may,  with  God's 
blessing,  direct  persons  how  to  prevent  being  touched  by  any 
contagious  distemper  whatsoever.  He  directs  the  poor  gratis. 

I  take  notice  of  these  by  way  of  specimen ;  I  could  give  you 
two  or  three  dozen  of  the  like,  and  yet  have  abundance  left 
behind.  It  is  sufficient  from  these  to  apprise  any  one  of  the 
humour  of  those  times,  and  how  a  set  of  thieves  and  pickpockets 
not  only  robbed  and  cheated  the  poor  people  of  their  money,  but 
poisoned  their  bodies  with  odious  and  fatal  preparations  ;  some 
with  mercury,  and  some  with  other  things  as  bad,  perfectly  re- 
mote from  the  thing  pretended  to,  and  rather  hurtful  than  ser- 
viceable to  the  body  in  case  an  infection  followed. 

I  cannot  omit  a  subtlety  of  one  of  those  quack  operators  with 
which  he  gulled  the  poor  people  to  crowd  about  him,  but  did 
nothing  for  them  without  money.  He  had,  it  seems,  added  to  his 
bills,  which  he  gave  out  in  the  streets,  this  advertisement  in  cap- 
ital letters,  viz.,  He  gives  advice  to  the  poor  for  nothing. 

Abundance  of  people  came  to  him  accordingly,  to  whom  he 
made  a  great  many  fine  speeches,  examined  them  of  the  state  of 
their  health,  and  of  the  constitution  of  their  bodies,  and  told  them 
many  good  things  to  do  which  were  of  no  great  moment ;  but 


376  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

the  issue  and  conclusion  of  all  was,  that  he  had  a  preparation, 
which,  if  they  took  such  a  quantity  of,  every  morning,  he  would 
pawn  his  life  that  they  should  never  have  the  plague,  no,  though 
they  lived  in  the  house  with  people  that  were  infected.  This 
made  the  people  all  resolve  to  have  it,  but  then,  the  price  of  that 
was  so  much,  I  think  it  was  half-a-crown  ;  But,  sir,  says  one  poor 
woman,  I  am  a  poor  almswoman,  and  am  kept  by  the  parish,  and 
your  bills  say,  you  give  the  poor  your  help  for  nothing.  Ay, 
good  woman,  says  the  doctor,  so  I  do,  as  I  published  there,  I  give 
my  advice,  but  not  my  physic  !  Alas,  sir,  says  she,  that  is  a  snare 
laid  for  the  poor  then,  for  you  give  them  your  advice  for  nothing ; 
that  is  to  say,  you  advise  them  gratis,  to  buy  your  physic  for  their 
money,  so  does  every  shopkeeper  his  wares.  Here  the  woman 
began  to  give  him  ill  words,  and  stood  at  his  door  all  that  day, 
telling  her  tale  to  all  the  people  that  came,  till  the  doctor,  finding 
she  turned  away  his  customers,  was  obliged  to  call  her  up  stairs 
again  and  gave  her  his  box  of  physic  for  nothing,  which,  perhaps 
too,  was  good  for  nothing  when  she  had  it. 

But,  to  return  to  the  people,  whose  confusions  fitted  them  to  be 
imposed  upon  by  all  sorts  of  pretenders  and  by  every  mounte- 
bank. There  is  no  doubt  but  these  quacking  sort  of  fellows  raised 
great  gains  out  of  the  miserable  people,  for  we  daily  found  the 
crowds  that  ran  after  them  were  infinitely  greater,  and  their  doors 
were  more  thronged  than  those  of  Dr.  Brooks,  Dr.  Upton,  Dr. 
Hodges,  Dr.  Berwick,  or  any,  though  the  most  famous  men  of  the 
time ;  and  I  was  told  that  some  of  them  got  5/.  a  day  by  their 
physic. 

But  there  was  still  another  madness  beyond  all  this,  which  may 
serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the  distracted  humour  of  the  poor  people 
at  that  time,  and  this  was  their  following  a  worse  sort  of  deceivers 
than  any  of  these,  for  these  petty  thieves  only  deluded  them  to 
pick  their  pockets  and  get  their  money,  in  which  their  wickedness, 
whatever  it  was,  lay  chiefly  on  the  side  of  the  deceiver's  deceiv- 
ing, not  upon  the  deceived  ;  but  in  this  part  I  am  going  to  men- 
tion, it  lay  chiefly  in  the  people  deceived,  or  equally  in  both  ;  and 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON.  377 

this  was  in  wearing  charms,  philters,  exorcisms,  amulets,  and  I  know 
not  what  preparations  to  fortify  the  body  against  the  plague,  as  if 
the  plague  was  not  the  hand  of  God,  but  a  kind  of  a  possession  of 
an  evil  spirit,  and  it  was  to  be  kept  off  with  crossings,  signs  of  the 
zodiac,  papers  tied  up  with  so  many  knots,  and  certain  words  or 
figures  written  on  them,  as  particularly  the  word  Abracadabra, 
formed  in  triangle  or  pyramid,  thus  : 

ABRACADABRA 

ABRACADABR  Others  had  the  Jesuits' 

ABRACADAB  mark  in  a  cross  : 

ABRACADA  IH 

ABRAC AD  S 

ABRAC  A 
ABRAC 

A  B  R  A  Others  had  nothing  but  this 

A  B  R  mark,  thus  : 

AB  + 

A 

I  might  spend  a  great  deal  of  my  time  in  exclamations  against 
the  follies,  and  indeed  the  wickedness  of  those  things,  in  a  time  of 
such  danger,  in  a  matter  of  such  consequence  as  this  of  a  national 
infection ;  but  my  memorandums  of  these  things  relate  rather  to 
take  notice  of  the  fact,  and  mention  only  that  it  was  so.  How  the 
poor  people  found  the  insufficiency  of  those  things,  and  how  many 
of  them  were  afterwards  carried  away  in  the  dead-carts,  and  thrown 
into  the  common  graves  of  every  parish  with  these  hellish  charms 
and  trumpery  hanging  about  their  necks,  remains  to  be  spoken  of 
as  we  go  along. 

All  this  was  the  effect  of  the  hurry  the  people  were  in,  after  the 
first  notion  of  the  plague  being  at  hand  was  among  them,  and 
which  may  be  said  to  be  from  about  Michaelmas,  1664,  but  more  par- 
ticularly after  the  two  men  died  in  St.  Giles's  in  the  beginning  of 
December ;  and  again  after  another  alarm  in  February,  for  when 


378  DANIEL  DEFOE. 

the  plague  evidently  spread  itself,  they  soon  began  to  see  the  folly 
of  trusting  to  these  unperforming  creatures,  who  had  gulled  them 
of  their  money,  and  then  their  fears  worked  another  way,  namely, 
to  amazement  and  stupidity,  not  knowing  what  course  to  take  or 
what  to  do,  either  to  help  or  to  relieve  themselves,  but  they  ran 
about  from  one  neighbour's  house  to  another,  and  even  in  the 
streets,  from  one  door  to  another,  with  repeated  cries  of,  Lord, 
have  mercy  upon  us,  what  shall  we  do  ? 

I  am  supposing  now  the  plague  to  have  begun,  as  I  have  said, 
and  that  the  magistrates  began  to  take  the  condition  of  the  people 
into  their  serious  consideration ;  what  they  did  as  to  the  regula- 
tion of  the  inhabitants,  and  of  infected  families,  I  shall  speak  to 
by  itself;  but,  as  to  the  affair  of  health,  it  is  proper  to  mention 
here  my  having  seen  the  foolish  humour  of  the  people  in  running 
after  quacks,  mountebanks,  wizards,  and  fortune-tellers,  which 
they  did  as  above  even  to  madness.  The  lord  mayor,  a  very  sober 
and  religious  gentleman,  appointed  physicians  and  surgeons  for 
the  relief  of  the  poor,  I  mean  the  diseased  poor,  and,  in  particular, 
ordered  the  college  of  physicians  to  publish  directions  for  cheap 
remedies  for  the  poor  in  all  the  circumstances  of  the  distemper. 
This  indeed  was  one  of  the  most  charitable  and  judicious  things 
that  could  be  done  at  that  time,  for  this  drove  the  people  from 
haunting  the  doors  of  every  disperser  of  bills,  and  from  taking 
down  blindly  and  without  consideration,  poison  for  physic,  and  • 
death  instead  of  life. 

This  direction  of  the  physicians  was  done  by  a  consultation  of 
the  whole  college,  and  as  it  was  particularly  calculated  for  the  use 
of  the  poor,  and  for  cheap  medicines,  it  was  made  public,  so  that 
everybody  might  see  it,  and  copies  were  given  gratis  to  all  that 
desired  it :  but  as  it  is  public  and  to  be  seen  on  all  occasions,  I 
need  not  give  the  reader  of  this  the  trouble  of  it. 


XVIII. 

HENRY  ST.   JOHN,  VISCOUNT    BOLING- 
BROKE. 

(1678-1751.) 

LETTERS  ON  THE  STUDY  AND   USE  OF  HISTORY. 

[Written  in  1735.] 
OF  THE  STUDY   OF   HISTORY. 

LETTER  II. 
Concerning  the  true  use  and  advantages  of  it. 

LET  me  say  something  of  history  in  general  before  I  descend 
into  the  consideration  of  particular  parts  of  it,  or  of  the  various 
methods  of  study,  or  of  the  different  views  of  those  that  apply 
themselves  to  it,  as  I  had  begun  to  do  in  my  former  letter. 

The  love  of  history  seems  inseparable  from  human  nature 
because  it  seems  inseparable  from  self-love.  The  same  principle 
in  this  instance  carries  us  forward  and  backward,  to  future  and 
to  past  ages.  We  imagine  that  the  things  which  affect  us,  must 
affect  posterity  :  this  sentiment  runs  through  mankind,  from  Caesar 
down  to  the  parish  clerk  in  Pope's  Miscellany.  We  are  fond  of 
preserving,  as  far  as  it  is  in  our  frail  power,  the  memory  of  our 
own  adventures,  of  those  of  our  own  time,  and  of  those  that  pre- 
ceded it.  Rude  heaps  of  stone  have  been  raised,  and  ruder 
hymns  have  been  composed  for  this  purpose,  by  nations  who  had 
not  yet  the  use  of  arts  and  letters.  To  go  no  farther  back,  the 
triumphs  of  Odin  were  celebrated  in  runic  songs,  and  the  feats  of 
our  British  ancestors  were  recorded  in  those  of  their  bards.  The 

379 


380  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

savages  of  America  have  the  same  custom  at  this  day :  and  long 
historical  ballads  of  their  huntings  and  their  wars  are  sung  at  all 
their  festivals.  There  is  no  need  of  saying  how  this  passion 
grows,  among  civilized  nations,  in  proportion  to  the  means  of 
gratifying  it :  but  let  us  observe  that  the  same  principle  of  nature 
directs  us  as  strongly,  and  more  generally  as  well  as  more  early, 
to  indulge  our  own  curiosity,  instead  of  preparing  to  gratify  that 
of  others.  The  child  hearkens  with  delight  to  the  tales  of  his 
nurse  :  he  learns  to  read,  and  he  devours  with  eagerness  fabulous 
legends  and  novels  :  in  riper  years  he  applies  himself  to  history, 
or  to  that  which  he  takes  for  history,  to  authorized  romance  :  and, 
even  in  age,  the  desire  of  knowing  what  has  happened  to  other 
men,  yields  to  the  desire  alone  of  relating  what  has  happened  to 
ourselves.  Thus  history,  true  or  false,  speaks  to  our  passions 
always.  What  pity  is  it,  my  lord,  that  even  the  best  should  speak 
to  our  understanding  so  seldom?  That  it  does  so,  we  have  none 
to  blame  but  ourselves.  Nature  has  done  her  part.  She  has 
opened  this  study  to  every  man  who  can  read  and  think  :  and 
what  she  has  made  the  most  agreeable,  reason  can  make  the  most 
useful,  application  of  our  minds.  But  if  we  consult  our  reason,  we 
shall  be  far  from  following  the  examples  of  our  fellow-creatures, 
in  this  as  in  most  other  cases,  who  are  so  proud  of  being  rational. 
"We  shall  neither  read  to  soothe  our  indolence,  nor  to  gratify  our 
vanity :  as  little  shall  we  content  ourselves  to  drudge  like  gram- 
marians and  critics,  that  others  may  be  able  to  study  with  greater 
ease  and  profit,  like  philosophers  and  statesmen  :  as  little  shall  we 
affect  the  slender  merit  of  becoming  great  scholars  at  the  expense 
of  groping  all  our  lives  in  the  dark  mazes  of  antiquity.  All  these 
mistake  the  true  drift  of  study,  and  the  true  use  of  history. 
Nature  gave  us  curiosity  to  excite  the  industry  of  our  minds ;  but 
she  never  intended  it  should  be  made  the  principal,  much  less 
the  sole,  object  of  their  application.  The  true  and  proper  object 
of  this  application  is  a  constant  improvement  in  private  and  in 
public  virtue.  An  application  to  any  study,  that  tends  neither 
directly  nor  indirectly  to  make  us  better  men  and  better  citizens, 


STUDY  AND    USE    OF  HISTORY.  381 

is  at  best  but  a  specious  and  ingenious  sort  of  idleness,  to  use  an 
expression  of  Tillotson  :  and  the  knowledge  we  acquire  by  it  is  a 
creditable  kind  of  ignorance,  nothing  more.  This  creditable  kind 
of  ignorance  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  whole  benefit  which  the  gener- 
ality of  men,  even  the  most  learned,  reap  from  the  study  of  his- 
tory :  and  yet  the  study  of  history  seems  to  me,  of  all  others  .the 
most  proper  to  train  us  up  to  private  and  public  virtue. 

Your  lordship  may  very  well  be  ready  by  this  time,  and  after  so 
much  bold  censure  on  my  part,  to  ask  me,  what  then  is  the  true 
use  of  history?  in  what  respects  it  may  serve  to  make  us  better 
and  wiser?  and  what  method  is  to  be  pursued  in  the  study  of  it, 
for  attaining  these  great  ends?  I  will  answer  you  by  quoting 
what  I  have  read  somewhere  or  other,  in  Dionysius  Halicarn,1  I 
think,  that  history  is  philosophy  teaching  by  examples.  We  need 
but  to  cast  our  eyes  on  the  world,  and  we  shall  see  the  daily  force 
of  example  :  we  need  but  to  turn  them  inward,  and  we  shall  soon 
discover  why  example  has  this  force:  " Pauci  prudentia"  says 
Tacitus,  "  honesta  ab  deterioribus,  utilia  ab  noxiis  discernunt : 
plures  aliorum  eventis  docentur."*  Such  is  the  imperfection  of 
human  understanding,  such  the  frail  temper  of  our  minds,  that 
abstract  or  general  propositions,  though  ever  so  true,  appear 
obscure  or  doubtful  to  us  very  often,  till  they  are  explained  by 
examples  :  and  that  -the  wisest  lessons  in  favour  of  virtue  go  but 
a  little  way  to  convince  the  judgment,  and  determine  the  will, 
unless  they  are  enforced  by  the  same  means ;  and  we  are  obliged 
to  apply  to  ourselves  what  we  see  happen  to  other  men.  Instruc- 
tions by  precept  have  the  further  disadvantage  of  coming  on  the 
authority  of  others,  and  frequently  require  a  long  deduction  of 
reasoning.  "Homines  amplius  oculis,  quam  auribus,  credunt : 
longum  iter  est  per  pracepta,  breve  et  efficax  per  exempla"  3  The 

1  Halicarnassensis,  i.e.,  of  Halicarnassus  in  Caria,  a  district  of  Asia  Minor. 

2  Few  by  prudence  distinguish  good  from  bad,  the  useful  from  the  injurious  ; 
more  are  taught  by  the  fortunes  of  others.  — TACITUS,  Annals,  IV.  33. 

3  Men  believe  more  from  seeing  than  hearing ;  the  way  is  long  by  precepts, 
short  and  effective  by  examples. —  SENECA,  Epistles,  6,  5. 


382  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

reason  of  this  judgment,  which  I  quote  from  one  of  Seneca's 
epistles,  in  confirmation  of  my  own  opinion  rests,  I  think,  on  this  ; 
that  when  examples  are  pointed  out  to  us,  there  is  a  kind  of 
appeal,  with  which  we  are  flattered,  made  to  our  senses,  as  well  as 
our  understandings.  The  instruction  comes  then  upon  our  own 
authority  :  we  frame  the  precept  after  our  own  experience,  and 
yield  to  fact,  when  we  resist  speculation.  But  this  is  not  the  only 
advantage  of  instruction  by  example  ;  for  example  appeals  not  to 
our  understanding  alone,  but  to  our  passions  likewise.  Example 
assuages  these,  or  animates  them;  sets  passion  on  the  side  of 
judgment,  and  makes  the  whole  man  of  a  piece,  which  is  more 
than  the  strongest  reasoning  and  the  clearest  demonstration  can 
do  :  and  thus  forming  habits  by  repetition,  example  secures  the 
observance  of  those  precepts  which  example  insinuated.  Is  it  not 
Pliny,  my  lord,  who  says,  that  the  gentlest,  he  should  have  added 
the  most  effectual,  way  of  commanding,  is  by  example?  "Mitins 
jubetur  exemplo."  4  The  harshest  orders  are  softened  by  example, 
and  tyranny  itself  becomes  persuasive.  What  pity  it  is  that  so  few 
princes  have  learned  this  way  of  commanding  ?  But  again  :  the 
force  of  examples  is  not  confined  to  those  alone  that  pass  imme- 
diately under  our  sight :  the  examples  that  memory  suggests,  have 
the  same  effect  in  their  degree,  and  an  habit  of  recalling  them  will 
soon  produce  the  habit  of  imitating  them.  In  the  same  epistle, 
from  whence  I  cited  a  passage  just  now,  Seneca  says  that  Cleanthes 
had  never  become  so  perfect  a  copy  of  Zeno,  if  he  had  not  passed 
his  life  with  him ;  that  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  the  other  philosophers 
of  that  school  profited  more  by  the  example,  than  by  the  discourse 
of  Socrates.  (But  here,  by  the  way,  Seneca  mistook ;  for  Socrates 
died  two  years  according  to  some,  and  four  years,  according  to 
others,  before  the  birth  of  Aristotle  : 5  and  his  mistake  might  come 
from  the  inaccuracy  of  those  who  collected  for  him ;  as  Erasmus 

*  Lit.,  it  is  commanded  more  gently  by  example.  —  PLINY.  [Cf.  PLINY,  Pane- 
gyricus,  XLV.  6.:  Melius  homines  exemplis  docentur  =  Men  are  taught  better 
by  examples^ 

6  Socrates  died  B.C.  399;   Aristotle  was  born  B.C.  384. 


STUDY  AND    USE    OF  HISTORY.  383 

observes,  after  Quintilian,  in  his  judgment  on  Seneca.)  But  be 
this,  which  was  scarce  worth  a  parenthesis,  as  it  will ;  he  adds 
that  Metrodorus,  Hermachus  and  Polyaenus,  men  of  great  note, 
were  formed  by  living  under  the  same  roof  with  Epicurus,  not 
by  frequenting  his  school.  These  are  instances  of  the  force  of 
immediate  example.  But  your  lordship  knows  that  the  citizens  of 
Rome  placed  the  images  of  their  ancestors  in  the  vestibule  of 
their  houses ;  so  that,  whenever  they  went  in  or  out,  these  ven- 
erable bustoes  met  their  eyes,  and  recalled  the  glorious  actions  of 
the  dead,  to  fire  the  living,  to  excite  them  to  imitate,  and  even  to 
emulate  their  great  forefathers.  The  success  answered  the  design. 
The  virtue  of  one  generation  was  transfused,  by  the  magic  of 
example,  into  several :  and  a  spirit  of  heroism  was  maintained 
through  many  ages  of  that  commonwealth.  Now  these  are  so 
many  instances  of  the  force  of  remote  example ;  and  from  all 
these  instances  we  may  conclude  that  examples  of  both  kinds  are 
necessary. 

The  school  of  example,  my  lord,  is  the  world  :  and  the  masters 
of  this  school  are  history  and  experience.  I  am  far  from  con- 
tending that  the  former  is  preferable  to  the  latter.  I  think  upon 
the  whole  otherwise  :  but  this  I  say,  that  the  former  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  prepare  us  for  the  latter,  and  to  accompany  us  whilst 
we  are  under  the  discipline  of  the  latter,  that  is,  through  the  whole 
course  of  our  lives.  No  doubt  some  few  men  may  be  quoted,  to 
whom  nature  gave  what  art  and  industry  can  give  to  no  man. 
But  such  examples  will  prove  nothing  against  me,  because  I  admit 
that  the  study  of  history,  without  experience,  is  insufficient ;  but 
assert  that  experience  itself  is  so  without  genius.  Genius  is 
preferable  to  the  other  two ;  but  I  would  wish  to  find  the  three 
together :  for  how  great  soever  a  genius  may  be,  and  how  much 
soever  he  may  acquire  new  light  and  heat,  as  he  proceeds  in  his 
rapid  course,  certain  it  is  that  he  will  never  shine  with  the  full 
lustre,  nor  shed  the  full  influence  he  is  capable  of,  unless  to  his 
own  experience  he  adds  the  experience  of  other  men  and  other 
ages.  Genius,  without  the  improvement,  at  least,  of  experience,  is 


384  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

what  comets  once  were  thought  to  be,  a  blazing  meteor,  irregular 
in  his  course,  and  dangerous  in  his  approach  ;  of  no  use  to  any 
system,  and  able  to  destroy  any.  Mere  sons  of  earth,  if  they 
have  experience  without  any  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the 
world,  are  but  half  scholars  in  the  science  of  mankind.  And  if 
they  are  conversant  in  history  without  experience,  they  are  worse 
than  ignorant ;  they  are  pedants,  always  incapable,  sometimes 
meddling  and  presuming.  The  man  who  has  all  three,  is  an 
honour  to  his  country,  and  a  public  blessing :  and  such,  I  trust, 
your  lordship  will  be  in  this  century,  as  your  great-grandfather  ° 
was  in  the  last. 

I  have  insisted  a  little  the  longer  on  this  head,  and  have  made 
these  distinctions  the  rather,  because  though  I  attribute  a  great 
deal  more  than  many  will  be  ready  to  allow  to  the  study  of  his- 
tory ;  yet  I  would  not  willingly  even  seem  to  fall  into  the  ridicule 
of  ascribing  to  it  such  extravagant  effects  as  several  have  done, 
from  Tully  down  to  Casaubon,  La  Mothe  le  Vayer,  and  other 
modern  pedants.  When  Tully  informs  us,  in  the  second  book  of 
his  Tusculan  disputations,  that  the  first  Scipio  Africanus  had 
always  in  his  hands  the  works  of  Xenophon,7  he  advances  nothing 
but  what  is  probable  and  reasonable.  To  say  nothing  of  the 
retreat  of  the  ten  thousand,  nor  of  other  parts  of  Xenophon's 
writings ;  the  images  of  virtue,  represented  in  that  admirable 
picture  of  Cyropaedia,  were  proper  to  entertain  a  soul  that  was 
fraught  with  virtue,  and  Cyrus  was  worthy  to  be  imitated  by 
Scipio.  So  Selim  emulated  Caesar,  whose  Commentaries  were 
translated  for  his  use,  against  the  customs  of  the  Turks  :  so  Caesar 
emulated  Alexander ;  and  Alexander,  Achilles.  There  is  nothing 
ridiculous  here,  except  the  use  that  is  made  of  this  passage  by 
those  who  quote  it.  But  what  the  same  Tully  says,  in  the  fourth 
[second]  book  of  his  academical  disputations,  concerning  Lucul- 
lus,  seems  to  me  very  extraordinary :  "In  Asiam  factus  imperator 

6  The  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

7  CICERO,  Tusculan  Disputations,  Book  II.,  Chap.  26  (Sect.  62),  referring 
to  XENOPHON,  Cyrop.,  I.  6,  25. 


STUDY  AND    USE    OF  HISTORY.  385 

vcnit,  cum  esset  Roma  prof ec fits  rei  militaris  rudis"  (one  would 
be  ready  to  ascribe  so  sudden  a  change,  and  so  vast  an  improve- 
ment, to  nothing  less  than  knowledge  infused  by  inspiration,  if  we 
were  not  assured  in  the  same  place  that  they  were  effected  by 
very  natural  means,  by  such  as  it  is  in  every  man's  power  to 
employ)  " partim  perco n ta ndo  a  peritis ,  partim  in  rebus  gestis  legen- 
dis" 8  Lucullus,  according  to  this  account,  verified  the  reproach 
on  the  Roman  nobility,  which  Sallust  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Marius.  But  as  I  discover  the  passion  of  Marius,  and  his  preju- 
dices to  the  patricians,  in  one  case ;  so  I  discover,  methinks,  the 
cunning  of  Tully,  and  his  partiality  to  himself,  in  the  other.  Lucul- 
lus, after  he  had  been  chosen  consul,  obtained  by  intrigue  the 
government  of  Cilicia,  and  so  put  himself  into  a  situation  of  com- 
manding the  Roman  army  against  Mithridates  :  Tully  had  the 
same  government  afterwards,  and  though  he  had  no  Mithridates, 
nor  any  other  enemy  of  consequence,  opposed  to  him  ;  though  all 
his  military  feats  consisted  in  surprising  and  pillaging  a  parcel  of 
Highlanders  and  wild  Cilicians ;  yet  he  assumed  the  airs  of  a  con- 
queror, and  described  his  actions  in  so  pompous  a  style,  that  the 
account  becomes  burlesque.  He  laughs,  indeed,  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  Atticus,  at  his  generalship  :  but  if  we  turn  to  those  he 
writ  to  Coelius  Rums,  and  to  Cato,  upon  this  occasion,  or  to  those 
wherein  he  expresses  to  Atticus  his  resentment  against  Cato,  for 
not  proposing  in  his  favour  the  honors  usually  decreed  to  con- 
querors, we  may  see  how  vanity  turned  his  head,  and  how  impu- 
dently he  insisted  on  obtaining  a  triumph.  Is  it  any  strain  now 
to  suppose,  that  he  meant  to  insinuate,  in  the  passage  I  have 
quoted  about  Lucullus,  that  the  difference  between  him  and  the 
former  governor  of  Cilicia,  even  in  military  merit,  arose  from  the 
different  conjuncture  alone ;  and  that  Lucullus  could  not  have 
done  in  Cilicia,  at  that  time,  more  than  he  himself  did  ?  Cicero 
had  read  and  questioned  at  least  as  much  as  Lucullus,  and  would 

8  Though  he  had  started  from  Rome  inexperienced  in  military  affairs,  he 
came  into  Asia  having  been  made  a  general  ;  partly  by  inquiring  of  those  who 
were  skilled,  partly  by  reading  history.  —  ClCERO,  Acad.,  II.  I,  i. 


386  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

therefore  have  appeared  as  great  a  captain,  if  he  had  had  as  great 
a  prince  as  Mithridates  to  encounter.  But  the  truth  is,  that  Lucul- 
lus  was  made  a  great  captain  by  theory,  or  the  study  of  history, 
alone,  no  more  than  Ferdinand  of  Spain  and  Alphonsus  of  Naples 
were  cured  of  desperate  distempers  by  reading  Livy  and  Quintus 
Curtius  :  a  silly  tale,  which  Bodin,  Amyot,  and  others  have  picked 
up  and  propagated.  Lucullus  had  served  in  his  youth  against  the 
Marsi,  probably  in  other  wars,  and  Sylla  took  early  notice  of  him  : 
he  went  into  the  east  with  this  general,  and  had  a  great  share  in 
his  confidence.  He  commanded  in  several  expeditions.  It  was 
he  who  restored  the  Colophonians  to  their  liberty  and  who  pun- 
ished the  revolt  of  the  people  of  Mytelene.  Thus  we  see  that 
Lucullus  was  formed  by  experience,  as  well  as  study,  and  by  an 
experience  gained  in  those  very  countries,  where  he  gathered  so 
many  laurels  afterwards  in  fighting  against  the  same  enemy.  The 
late  duke  of  Marlborough  never  read  Xenophon,  most  certainly, 
nor  the  relation  perhaps  of  any  modern  wars ;  but  he  served  in 
his  youth  under  monsieur  de  Turenne,  and  I  have  heard  that  he 
was  taken  notice  of  in  those  early  days  by  that  great  man.  He 
afterwards  commanded  in  an  expedition  to  Ireland,  served  a 
campaign  or  two,  if  I  mistake  not,  under  king  William  in  Flan- 
ders :  and  besides  these  occasions,  had  none  of  gaining  experience 
in  war,  till  he  came  to  the  head  of  our  armies  in  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  two,  and  triumphed,  not  over  Asiatic  troops, 
but  over  the  veteran  armies  of  France.  The  Roman  had  on  his 
side  genius  and  experience  cultivated  by  study :  the  Briton  had 
genius  improved  by  experience,  and  no  more.  The  first  there- 
fore is  not  an  example  of  what  study  can  do  alone ;  but  the  lat- 
ter is  an  example  of  what  genius  and  experience  can  do  without 
study.  They  can  do  much,  to  be  sure,  when  the  first  is  given  in  a 
superior  degree.  But  such  examples  are  very  rare :  and  when 
they  happen,  it  will  be  still  true,  that  they  would  have  had  fewer 
blemishes,  and  would  have  come  nearer  to  the  perfection  of  private 
and  public  virtue,  in  all  the  arts  of  peace  and  achievements  of 
war,  if  the  views  of  such  men  had  been  enlarged,  and  their  senti- 


STUDY  AND    USE    OF  HISTORY.  387 

nients  ennobled,  by  acquiring  that  cast  of  thought,  and  that  tem- 
per of  mind,  which  will  grow  up  and  become  habitual  in  every 
man  who  applies  himself  early  to  the  study  of  history,  as  well  as  to 
the  study  of  philosophy,  with  the  intention  of  being  wiser  and 
better,  without  the  affectation  of  being  more  learned. 

The  temper  of  the  mind  is  formed,  and  a  certain  turn  given  to 
our  ways  of  thinking ;  in  a  word,  the  seeds  of  that  moral  charac- 
ter which  cannot  wholly  alter  the  natural  character,  but  may  cor- 
rect the  evil  and  improve  the  good  that  is  in  it,  or  do  the  very 
contrary,  are  sown  betimes,  and  much  sooner  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  It  is  equally  certain  that  we  shall  gather  or  not  gather 
experience,  be  the  better  or  the  worse  for  this  experience,  when 
we  come  into  the  world  and  mingle  amongst  mankind,  according 
to  the  temper  of  mind,  and  the  turn  of  thought,  that  we  have 
acquired  beforehand,  and  bring  along  with  us.  They  will  tincture 
all  our  future  acquisitions ;  so  that  the  very  same  experience, 
which  secures  the  judgment  of  one  man,  or  excites  him  to  virtue, 
shall  lead  another  into  error,  or  plunge  him  into  vice.  From 
hence  it  follows,  that  the  study  of  history  has  in  this  respect  a 
double  advantage.  If  experience  alone  can  make  us  perfect  in 
our  parts,  experience  cannot  begin  to  teach  them  till  we  are  act- 
ually on  the  stage  :  whereas,  by  a  previous  application  to  this 
study,  we  con  them  over  at  least,  before  we  appear  there  :  we  are 
not  quite  unprepared,  we  learn  our  parts  sooner,  and  we  icarn 
them  better. 

Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  an  example.  There  is  scarce 
any  folly  or  vice  more  epidemical  among  the  sons  of  men,  than 
that  ridiculous  and  hurtful  vanity,  by  which  the  people  of  each 
country  are  apt  to  prefer  themselves  to  those  of  every  other; 
and  to  make  their  own  customs,  and  manners,  and  opinions,  the 
standards  of  right  and  wrong,  of  true  and  false.  The  Chinese 
mandarins  were  strangely  surprised,  and  almost  incredulous,  when 
the  Jesuits  showed  them  how  small  a  figure  their  empire  made  in 
the  general  map  of  the  world.  The  Samojedes  wondered  much 
at  the  Czar  of  Muscovy  for  not  living  among  them  :  and  the  Hot- 


388  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

tentot,  who  returned  from  Europe,  stripped  himself  naked  as  soon 
as  he  came  home,  put  on  his  bracelets  of  guts  and  garbage,  and 
grew  stinking  and  lousy  as  fast  as  he  could.  Now  nothing  can 
contribute  more  to  prevent  us  from  being  tainted  with  this  vanity, 
than  to  accustom  ourselves  early  to  contemplate  the  different  na- 
tions of  the  earth  in  that  vast  map  which  history  spreads  before 
us,  in  their  rise  and  their  fall,  in  their  barbarous  and  civilized 
states,  in  the  likeness  and  unlikeness  of  them  all  to  one  another, 
and  of  each  to  itself.  By  frequently  renewing  this  prospect  to  the 
mind,  the  Mexican  with  his  cap  and  coat  of  feathers,  sacrificing  a 
human  victim  to  his  god,  will  not  appear  more  savage  to  our  eyes, 
than  the  Spaniard  with  an  hat  on  his  head,  and  a  gonilla  "  round 
his  neck,  sacrificing  whole  nations  to  his  ambition,  his  avarice, 
and  even  the  wantonness  of  his  cruelty.  I  might  shew,  by  a  mul- 
titude of  other  examples,  how  history  prepares  us  for  experience, 
and  guides  us  in  it :  and  many  of  these  would  be  both  curious  and 
important.  I  might  likewise  bring  several  other  instances,  wherein 
history  serves  to  purge  the  mind  of  those  national  partialities  and 
prejudices  that  we  are  apt  to  contract  in  our  education,  and  that 
experience  for  the  most  part  rather  confirms  than  removes  :  be- 
cause it  is  for  the  most  part  confined,  like  our  education.  But  I 
apprehend  growing  too  prolix,  and  shall  therefore  conclude  this 
head  by  observing,  that  though  an  early  and  proper  application  to 
the  study  of  history  will  contribute  extremely  to  keep  our  minds 
free  from  a  ridiculous  partiality  in  favor  of  our  own  country,  and  a 
vicious  prejudice  against  others  j  yet  the  same  study  will  create  in 
us  a  preference  of  affection  to  our  own  country.  There  is  a  story 
told  of  Abgarus.9  He  brought  several  beasts  taken  in  different 
places  to  Rome,  they  say,  and  let  them  loose  before  Augustus  : 
every  beast  ran  immediately  to  that  part  of  the  Circus,  where  a 
parcel  of  earth  taken  from  his  native  soil  had  been  laid.  "  Credat 
Judaus  Apella."  10  This  tale  might  pass  on  Josephus  ;  for  in  him, 
I  believe,  I  read  it :  but  surely  the  love  of  our  country  is  a  lesson 

9  Title  of  the  kings  of  Edessa  in  Mesopotamia,  as  Pharaoh  in  Egypt. 
10  Let  the  Jew  Apella  believe  it.  —  HORACE,  Satires,  I.  5.  100.         ll  cape? 


STUDY  AND    USE   Of  HISTORY.  389 

of  reason,  not  an  institution  of  nature.  Education  and  habit,  ob- 
ligation and  interest,  attach  us  to  it,  not  instinct.  It  is  however  so 
necessary  to  be  cultivated,  and  the  prosperity  of  all  societies,  as 
well  as  the  grandeur  of  some,  depends  upon  it  so  much,  that 
orators  by  their  eloquence,  and  poets  by  their  enthusiasm,  have 
endeavoured  to  work  up  this  precept  of  morality  into  a  principle 
of  passion.  But  the  examples  which  we  find  in  history,  improved 
by  the  lively  descriptions,  and  the  just  applauses  or  censures  of 
historians,  will  have  a  much  better  and  more  permanent  effect, 
than  declamation,  or  song,  or  the  dry  ethics  of  mere  philosophy. 
In  fine,  to  converse  with  historians  is  to  keep  good  company : 
many  of  them  were  excellent  men,  and  those  who  were  not  such, 
have  taken  care  however  to  appear  such  in  their  writings.  It 
must  be  therefore  of  great  use  to  prepare  ourselves  by  this  conver- 
sation for  that  of  the  world ;  and  to  receive  our  first  impressions, 
and  to  acquire  our  first  habits,  in  a  scene  where  images  of  virtue 
and  vice  are  continually  represented  to  us  in  the  colors  that  be- 
long properly  to  them,  before  we  enter  on  another  scene,  where 
virtue  and  vice  are  too  often  confounded,  and  what  belongs  to 
one  is  ascribed  to  the  other. 

Besides  the  advantage  of  beginning  our  acquaintance  with  man- 
kind sooner,  and  of  bringing  with  us  into  the  world  and  the 
business  of  it,  such  a  cast  of  thought  and  such  a  temper  of  mind, 
as  will  enable  us  to  make  a  better  use  of  our  experience  ;  there  is 
this  further  advantage  in  the  study  of  history,  that  the  improve- 
ment we  make  by  it  extends  to  more  objects,  and  is  made  at  the 
expence  of  other  men  :  whereas  that  improvement,  which  is  the 
effect  of  our  own  experience,  is  confined  to  fewer  objects,  and  is 
made  at  our  own  expence.  .  To  state  the  account  fairly  therefore 
between  these  two  improvements ;  though  the  latter  be  the  more 
valuable,  yet  allowance  being  made  on  one  side  for  the  much 
greater  number  of  examples  that  history  presents  to  us,  and 
deduction  being  made  on  the  other  of  the  price  we  often  pay  for 
our  experience,  the  value  of  the  former  will  rise  in  proportion. 
"  I  have  recorded  these  things,"  says  Polybius,  after  giving  an 


390  LORD  BOLINGBROK&. 

account  of  the  defeat  of  Regulus,  "  that  they  who  read  these  com- 
mentaries may  be  rendered  better  by  them  ;  for  all  men  have  two 
ways  of  improvement,  one  arising  from  their  own  experience,  and 
one  from  the  experience  of  others."  "Evidentior  quidem  ilia  est, 
qua  per  propria  ducit  infortunia  ;  at  tutior  ilia,  qua  per  afiena."n 
I  use  Casaubon's  translation.  Polybius  goes  on  and  concludes, 
"  that  since  the  first  of  these  ways  exposes  us  to  great  labour  and 
peril,  whilst  the  second  works  the  same  good  effect,  and  is 
attended  by  no  evil  circumstance,  every  one  ought  to  take  for 
granted,  that  the  study  of  history  is  the  best  school  where  he  can 
learn  how  to  conduct  himself  in  all  the  situations  of  life."  Regulus 
had  seen  at  Rome  many  examples  of  magnanimity,  of  frugality, 
of  the  contempt  of  riches  and  of  other  virtues ;  and  these  virtues 
he  practised.  But  he  had  not  learned,  nor  had  opportunity  of 
learning  another  lesson,  which  the  examples  recorded  in  history 
inculcate  frequently,  the  lesson  of  moderation.  An  insatiable 
thirst  of  military  fame,  and  unconfined  ambition  of  extending  their 
empire,  an  extravagant  confidence  in  their  own  courage  and  force, 
an  insolent  contempt  of  their  enemies,  and  impetuous  over-bear- 
ing spirit  with  which  they  pursued  all  their  enterprises,  composed 
in  his  days  the  distinguishing  character  of  a  Roman.  Whatever 
the  senate  and  people  resolved,  to  the  members  of  that  common- 
wealth appeared  both  practicable  and  just.  Neither  difficulties 
nor  dangers  could  check  them ;  and  their  sages  had  not  yet  dis- 
covered that  virtues  in  excess  degenerate  into  vices.  Notwith- 
standing the  beautiful  rant  which  Horace  puts  into  his  mouth,  I 
make  no  doubt  that  Regulus  learned  at  Carthage  those  lessons  of 
moderation  which  he  had  not  learned  at  Rome ;  but  he  learned 
them  by  experience,  and  the  fruits  of  this  experience  came  too 
late  and  cost  too  dear;  for  they  cost  the  total  defeat  of  the 
Roman  army,  the  prolongation  of  a  calamitous  war  which  might 
have  been  finished  by  a  glorious  peace,  the  loss  of  liberty  to  thou- 

12  That  {experience}  is  indeed  plainer  which  arises  through  our  own  mis- 
fortunes, but  that  is  safer  which  arises  through  those  of  others. —  POLYBIUS, 
translated  by  Casaubon. 


STUDY  AND   USE   Of  Iff  STORY.  391 

Sands  of  Roman  citizens,  and  to  Regulus  himself,  the  loss  of  life 
in  the  midst  of  torments,  if  we  are  to  credit  what  is  perhaps  exag- 
geration in  the  Roman  authors. 

There  is  another  advantage,  worthy  our  observation,  that  be- 
longs to  the  study  of  history ;  and  that  I  shall  mention  here,  not 
only  because  of  the  importance  of  it,  but  because  it  leads  me 
immediately  to  speak  of  the  nature  of  the  improvement  we  ought 
to  have  in  our  view,  and  of  the  method  in  which  it  seems  to  me 
that  this  improvement  ought  to  be  pursued  :  two  particulars  from 
which  your  lordship  may  think  perhaps  that  I  digress  too  long. 
The  advantage  I  mean  consists  in  this,  that  the  examples  which 
history  presents  to  us,  both  of  men  and  of  events,  are  generally 
complete  :  the  whole  example  is  before  us,  and  consequently  the 
whole  lesson,  or  sometimes  the  various  lessons,  which  philosophy 
proposes  to  teach  us  by  this  example.  For  first,  as  to  men ;  we 
see  them  at  their  whole  length  in  history,  and  we  see  them  gen- 
erally there  through  a  medium  less  partial  at  least  than  that  of 
experience  :  for  I  imagine  that  a  whig  or  a  tory,  whilst  those  par- 
ties subsisted,  would  have  condemned  in  Saturninus  the  spirit  of 
faction  which  he  applauded  in  his  own  tribunes,  and  would  have 
applauded  in  Drusus  the  spirit  of  moderation  which  he  despised 
in  those  of  the  contrary  party,  and  which  he  suspected  and  hated 
in  those  of  his  own  party.  The  villain  who  has  imposed  on  man- 
kind by  his  power  or  cunning,  and  whom  experience  could  not 
unmask  for  a  time,  is  unmasked  at  length  :  and  the  honest  man, 
who  has  been  misunderstood  or  defamed,  is  justified  before  his 
story  ends.  Or  if  this  does  not  happen,  if  the  villain  dies  with  his 
mask  on,  in  the  midst  of  applause,  and  honour,  and  wealth,  and 
power,  and  if  the  honest  man  dies  under  the  same  load  of  calumny 
and  disgrace  under  which  he  lived,  driven  perhaps  into  exile,  and 
exposed  to  want ;  yet  we  see  historical  justice  executed,  the  name 
of  one  branded  with  infamy,  and  that  of  the  other  celebrated  with 
panegyric  to  succeeding  ages.  "  Prcecipitum  munus  annalium 
rear,  ne  virtutes  sileantur,  utque  pravis  dictis  factisque  ex  poster- 


392  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 

itate  et  infamia  metus  si/."12  Thus,  according  to  Tacitus,  and 
according  to  truth,  from  which  his  judgments  seldom  deviate,  the 
principal  duty  of  history  is  to  erect  a  tribunal,  like  that  among  the 
Egyptians,  mentioned  by  Diodorus  Siculus,  where  men  and  princes 
themselves  were  tried,  and  condemned  or  acquitted,  after  their 
deaths ;  where  those  who  had  not  been  punished  for  their  crimes, 
and  those  who  had  not  been  honoured  for  their  virtues,  received  a 
just  retribution.  The  sentence  is  pronounced  in  one  case,  as  it 
was  in  the  other,  too  late  to  correct  or  recompense  ;  but  it  is  pro- 
nounced in  time  to  render  these  examples  of  general  instruction 
to  mankind.  Thus  Cicero,  that  I  may  quote  one  instance  out  of 
thousands,  and  that  I  may  do  justice  to  the  general  character  of 
that  great  man,  whose  particular  failing  I  have  censured  so  freely ; 
Cicero,  I  say,  was  abandoned  by  Octavius,  and  massacred  by 
Antony.  But  let  any  man  read  this  fragment  of  Arellius  Fuscus, 
and  choose  which  he  would  wish  to  have  been,  the  orator,  or  the 
triumvir?  "Quoad  humanum  genus  incolume  manserit,  quamdiu 
usus  literis,  honor  summcz  eloquentice  pretium  erit,  quamdiu  re- 
rum  natura  aut  fortuna  steterit,  aut  memoria  duraverit,  admira- 
bile  posteris  vigebis  ingenium,  et  uno  proscriptus  seculo,  proscribes 
Antonium  omnibus" 13 

Thus  again,  as  to  events  that  stand  recorded  in  history,  we  see 
them  all,  we  see  them  as  they  followed  one  another,  or  as  they 
produced  one  another,  causes  or  effects,  immediate  or  remote. 
We  are  cast  back,  as  it  were,  into  former  ages  :  we  live  with 
the  men  who  lived  before  us,  and  we  inhabit  countries  that  we 
never  saw.  Place  is  enlarged,  and  time  prolonged,  in  this  man- 
ner ;  so  that  the  man  who  applies  himself  early  to  the  study  of 

13  I  esteem  it  the  chief  office  of  annals  that  -virtues  be  not  kept  silent,  and  that 
men  may  fear  wicked  words  and  deeds  by  reason  of  posterity  and  ill  report.  — 
TACITUS,  Annals,  III.  65. 

14  As  long  as  the  human  race  shall  exist,  as  long  as  literature  shall  prevail, 
as  long  as  honor  shall  be  the  reward  of  the  highest  eloquence,  as  long  as  nature 
or  fortune  shall  stand,  or  memory  endure,  you  will  be  esteemed  by  posterity  a 
wvnderful  intellect,  and  though  proscribed  in  one  age,  you  will  proscribe  An- 
tony in  all.  — ARELLIUS  Fuscus. 


STUDY  AND    USE   OF  HISTORY.  393 

history,  may  acquire  in  a  few  years,  and  before  he  sets  his  foot 
abroad  in  the  world,  not  only  a  more  extended  knowledge  of 
mankind,  but  the  experience  of  more  centuries  than  any  of 
the  patriarchs  saw.  The  events  we  are  witnesses  of,  in  the 
course  of  the  longest  life,  appear  to  us  very  often  original,  unpre- 
pared, single,  and  un-relative,  if  I  may  use  such  an  expression  for 
want  of  a  better  in  English ;  in  French  I  would  say  isoles :  they 
appear  such  very  often,  are  called  accidents,  and  looked  on  as 
the  effects  of  chance ;  a  word,  by  the  way,  which  is  in  constant 
use,  and  has  frequently  no  determinate  meaning.  We  get  over  the 
present  difficulty,  we  improve  the  momentary  advantage,  as  well 
as  we  can,  and  we  look  no  farther.  Experience  can  carry  us  no 
farther ;  for  experience  can  go  a  very  little  way  back  in  discover- 
ing causes  :  and  effects  are  not  the  objects  of  experience  till  they 
happen.  From  hence  many  errors  in  judgment,  and  by  conse- 
quence in  conduct,  necessarily  arise.  And  here  too  lies  the 
difference  we  are  speaking*  of  between  history  and  experience. 
The  advantage  on  the  side  of  the  former  is  double.  In  ancient 
history,  as  we  have  said  already,  the  examples  are  complete,  which 
are  incomplete  in  the  course  of  experience.  The  beginning,  the 
progression,  and  the  end  appear,  not  of  particular  reigns,  much 
less  of  particular  enterprizes,  or  systems  of  policy  alone,  but  of 
governments,  of  nations,  of  empires,  and  of  all  the  various  systems 
that  have  succeeded  one  another  in  the  course  of  their  duration. 
In  modern  history,  the  examples  may  be,  and  sometimes  are, 
incomplete ;  but  they  have  this  advantage  when  they  a-re  so, 
that  they  serve  to  render  complete  the  examples  of  our  own  time. 
Experience  is  doubly  defective ;  we  are  born  too  late  to  see  the 
beginning,  and  we  die  too  soon  to  see  the  end  of  many  things. 
History  supplies  both  these  defects.  Modern  history  shews  the 
causes,  when  experience  presents  the  effects  alone :  and  ancient 
history  enables  us  to  guess  at  the  effects,  when  experience  presents 
the  causes  alone.  Let  me  explain  my  meaning  by  two  examples 
of  these  kinds ;  one  past,  the  other  actually  present. 

When  the  revolution  of  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty- 


394  LORD  BOLINGBROXE. 

eight  happened,  few  men  then  alive,  I  suppose,  went  farther  in 
their  search  after  the  causes  of  it,  than  the  extravagant  attempt  of 
king  James  against  the  religion  and  liberty  of  his  people.  His 
former  conduct,  and  the  passages  of  king  Charles  the  second's 
reign  might  rankle  still  at  the  hearts  of  some  men,  but  could  not 
be  set  to  account  among  the  causes  of  his  deposition;  since  he 
had  succeeded,  notwithstanding  them,  peaceably  to  the  throne  : 
and  the  nation  in  general,  even  many  of  those  who  would  have 
excluded  him  from  it,  were  desirous,  or  at  least,  willing,  that  he 
should  continue  in  it.  Now  this  example,  thus  stated,  affords, 
no  doubt,  much  good  instruction  to  the  kings  and  people  of 
Britain.  But  this  instruction  is  not  entire,  because  the  example 
thus  stated,  and  confined  to  the  experience  of  that  age,  is  im- 
perfect. King  James's  mal-administration  rendered  a  revolution 
necessary  and  practicable ;  but  his  mal-administration,  as  well  as 
all  his  preceding  conduct,  was  caused  by  his  bigot-attachment  to 
popery,  and  to  the  principles  of  arbitrary  government,  from  which 
no  warning  could  divert  him.  His  bigot-attachment  to  these  was 
caused  by  the  exile  of  the  royal  family,  this  exile  was  caused  by 
the  usurpation  of  Cromwell :  and  Cromwell's  usurpation  was  the 
effect  of  a  former  rebellion,  begun  not  without  reason  on  account 
of  liberty,  but  without  any  valid  pretence  on  account  of  religion. 
During  this  exile,  our  princes  caught  the  taint  of  popery  and 
foreign  politics.  We  made  them  unfit  to  govern  us,  and  after  that 
were  forced  to  recal  them  that  they  might  rescue  us  out  of 
anarchy.  It  was  necessary  therefore,  your  lordship  sees,  at  the 
revolution,  and  it  .is  more  so  now,  to  go  back  in  history,  at  least 
as  far  as  I  have  mentioned,  and  perhaps  farther,  even  to  the 
beginning  of  king  James  the  first's  reign,  to  render  this  event  a 
complete  example,  and  to  develop  all  the  wise,  honest  and  salutary 
precepts,  with  which  it  is  pregnant,  both  to  the  king  and  subject. 

The  other  example  shall  be  taken  from  what  has  succeeded  the 
revolution.  Few  men  at  that  time  looked  forward  enough,  to  fore- 
see the  necessary  consequences  of  the  new  constitution  of  the 
revenue  that  was  soon  afterwards  formed ;  nor  of  the  method  of 


STUDY  AND    USE   OF  HISTORY.  395 

funding  that  immediately  took  place ;  which,  absurd  as  they  are, 
have  continued  ever  since,  till  it  is  become  scarce  possible  to  alter 
them.  Few  people,  I  say,  foresaw  how  the  creation  of  funds,  and 
the  multiplication  of  taxes,  would  increase  yearly  the  power  of 
the  crown,  and  bring  our  liberties,  by  a  natural  and  necessary 
progression,  into  more  real,  though  less  apparent  danger,  than 
they  were  in  before  the  revolution.  The  excessive  ill  husbandry 
practised  from  the  beginning  of  king  William's  reign,  and  which 
laid  the  foundations  of  all  we  feel  and  all  we  fear,  was  not  the 
effect  of  ignorance,  mistake,  or  what  we  call  chance,  but  of  design 
and  scheme  in  those  who  had  the  sway  at  that  time.  I  am  not  so 
uncharitable,  however,  as  to  believe  that  they  intended  to  bring 
upon  their  country  all  the  mischiefs  that  we,  who  came  after  them, 
experience,  and  apprehend.  No,  they  saw  the  measures  they 
took  singly,  and  unrelatively,  or  relatively  alone  to  some  im- 
mediate object.  The  notion  of  attaching  men  to  the  new  govern- 
ment, by  tempting  them  to  embark  their  fortunes  on  the  same 
bottom,  was  a  reason  of  state  to  some  :  the  notion  of  creating  a 
new,  that  is,  a  moneyed  interest,  in  opposition  to  the  landed  inter- 
est, or  as  a  balance  to  it,  and  of  acquiring  a  superior  influence  in 
the  city  of  London  at  least  by  the  establishment  of  great  cor- 
porations, was  a  reason  of  party  to  others  :  and  I  make  no  doubt 
that  the  opportunity  of  amassing  immense  estates  by  the  manage- 
ment of  funds,  by  trafficking  in  paper,  and  by  all  the  arts  of  job- 
bing, was  a  reason  of  private  interest  to  those  who  supported  and 
improved  this  scheme  of  iniquity,  if  not  to  those  who  devised  it. 
They  looked  no  farther.  Nay,  we  who  came  after  them,  and 
have  long  tasted  the  bitter  fruits  of  the  corruption  they  planted, 
were  far  from  taking  such  an  alarm  at  our  distress,  and  our 
danger,  as  they  deserved ;  till  the  mcst  remote  and  fatal  effect  of 
causes,  laid  by  the  last  generation,  was  very  near  becoming  an 
object  of  experience  in  this.  Your  lordship,  I  am  sure,  sees  at 
once  how  much  a  due  reflection  on  the  passages  of  former  times, 
as  they  stand  recorded  in  the  history  of  our  own,  and  of  other 
countries,  would  have  deterred  a  free  people  from  trusting  the 


3%  LORD  BOLINGBROKE, 

sole  management  of  so  great  a  revenue,  and  the  sole  nomination 
of  those  legions  of  officers  employed  in  it,  to  their  chief  magis- 
trate. There  remained  indeed  no  pretence  for  doing  so,  when 
once  a  salary  was  settled  on  the  prince,  and  the  public  revenue 
was  no  longer  in  any  sense  his  revenue,  nor  the  public  expence 
his  expence.  Give  me  leave  to  add,  that  it  would  have  been,  and 
would  be  still,  more  decent  with  regard  to  the  prince,  and  less 
repugnant  if  not  more  conformable  to  the  principle  and  practice 
too  of  our  government,  to  take  this  power  and  influence  from  the 
prince,  or  to  share  it  with  him ;  than  to  exclude  men  from  the 
privilege  of  representing  their  fellow-subjects  who  would  chuse 
them  in  parliament,  purely  because  they  are  employed  and  trusted 
by  the  prince. 

Your  lordship  sees  not  only  how  much  a  due  reflection  upon  the 
experience  of  other  ages  and  countries  would  have  pointed  out 
national  corruption,  as  the  natural  and  necessary  consequence  of 
investing  the  crown  with  the  management  of  so  great  a  revenue ; 
but  also  the  loss  of  liberty,  as  the  natural  and  necessary  conse- 
quence of  national  corruption. 

These  two  examples  explain  sufficiently  what  they  are  intended 
to  explain.  It  only  remains  therefore  upon  this  head,  to  observe 
the  difference  between  two  manners  in  which  history  supplies  the 
defects  of  our  own  experience.  It  shows  us  causes  as  in  fact  they 
were  laid,  with  their  immediate  effects :  and  it  enables  us  to  guess 
at  future  events.  It  can  do  no  more,  in  the  nature  of  things. 
My  lord  Bacon,  in  his  second  book  of  the  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing, having  in  his  mind,  I  suppose,  what  Philo  and  Josephus 
asserted  of  Moses,  affirms  divine  history  to  have  this  prerogative, 
that  the  narration  may  be  before  the  fact  as  well  as  after.  But 
since  the  ages  of  prophecy,  as  well  as  miracles,  are  past,  we  must 
content  ourselves  to  guess  at  what  will  be  by  what  has  been :  we 
have  no  other  means  in  our  power,  and  history  furnishes  us  with 
these.  How  we  are  to  improve,  and  apply  these  means  as  well  as 
how  we  are  to  acquire  them,  shall  be  deduced  more  particularly 
in  another  letter. 


XIX. 

DAVID    HUME. 

(1711-1776.) 

ESS  A  YS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY. 

[Published  in  1742-] 

ESSAY  XIII.  —  OF  ELOQUENCE. 

THOSE  who  consider  the  periods  and  revolutions  of  human  kind, 
as  represented  in  history,  are  entertained  with  a  spectacle  full  of 
pleasure  and  variety,  and  see,  with  surprise,  the  manners,  customs, 
and  opinions  of  the  same  species  susceptible  of  such  prodigious 
changes  in  different  periods  of  time.  It  may,  however,  be  ob- 
served, that  in  civil  history  there  is  found  a  much  greater  uniform- 
ity than  in  the  history  of  learning  and  science,  and  that  the  wars, 
negotiations,  and  politics  of  one  age,  resemble  more  those  of 
another,  than  the  taste,  wit,  and  speculative  principles.  Interest 
and  ambition,  honour  and  shame,  friendship  and  enmity,  gratitude 
and  revenge,  are  the  prime  movers  in  all  public  transactions ;  and 
these  passions  are  of  a  very  stubborn  and  intractable  nature,  in 
comparison  of  the  sentiments  and  understanding,  which  are  easily 
varied  by  education  and  example.  The  Goths  were  much  more 
inferior  to  the  Romans  in  taste  and  science  than  in  courage  and 
virtue. 

But  not  to  compare  together  nations  so  widely  different ;  it  may 
be  observed,  that  even  this  later  period  of  human  learning  is,  in 
many  respects,  of  an  opposite  character  to  the  ancient ;  and  that, 
if  we  be  superior  in  philosophy,  we  are  still,  notwithstanding  all  our 
refinements,  much  inferior  in  eloquence. 

397 


398  DAVID  HUME. 

In  ancient  times,  no  work  of  genius  was  thought  to  require  so 
great  parts  and  capacity  as  the  speaking  in  public ;  and  some 
eminent  writers  have  pronounced  the  talents,  even  of  a  great  poet 
or  philosopher,  to  be  of  an  inferior  nature  to  those  which  are 
requisite  for  such  an  undertaking.  Greece  and  Rome  produced, 
each  of  them,  but  one  accomplished  orator ;  and  whatever  praises 
the  other  celebrated  speakers  might  merit,  they  were  still  esteemed 
much  inferior  to  these  great  models  of  eloquence.  It  is  observable 
that  the  ancient  critics  could  scarcely  find  two  orators  in  any  age, 
who  deserved  to  be  placed  precisely  in  the  same  rank,  and  pro- 
fessed the  same  degree  of  merit.  Calvus,  Coelius,  Curio,  Hor- 
tensius,  Caesar,  rose  one  above  another ;  but  the  greatest  of  that 
age  was  inferior  to  Cicero,  the  most  eloquent  speaker  that  had 
ever  appeared  in  Rome.  Those  of  fine  taste,  however,  pro- 
nounced this  judgment  of  the  Roman  orator,  as  well  as  of  the 
Grecian,  that  both  of  them  surpassed  in  eloquence  all  that  had 
ever  appeared,  but  that  they  were  far  from  reaching  the  perfec- 
tion of  their  art,  which  was  infinite,  and  not  only  exceeded  human 
force  to  attain,  but  human  imagination  to  conceive.  Cicero  de- 
clares himself  dissatisfied  with  his  own  performances ;  nay,  even 
with  those  of  Demosthenes ;  ltd  sunt  avidce  et  capaces  \_me(z 
aures~\,  says  he,  et  semper  aliquid  immensum,  infinitumque  desid- 
erant} 

Of  all  the  polite  and  learned  nations,  England  alone  professes  a 
popular  government,  or  admits  into  the  legislature  such  numerous 
assemblies  as  can  be  supposed  to  lie  under  the  dominion  of  elo- 
quence. But  what  has  England  to  boast  of  in  this  particular  ?  In 
enumerating  the  great  men  who  have  done  honour  to  our  country, 
we  exult  in  our  poets  and  philosophers ;  but  what  orators  are  ever 
mentioned  ?  Or  where  are  the  monuments  of  their  genius  to  be 
met  with  ?  there  are  found,  indeed,  in  our  histories,  the  names  of 
several,  who  directed  the  resolutions  of  our  parliament :  But 
neither  themselves  nor  others  have  taken  the  pains  to  preserve  the 

1  My  ears  are  so  greedy  and  capacious,  and  always  long  for  something  im- 
mense and  infinite,  —  CICERO,  Orator,  29  (104). 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         399 

speeches ;  and  the  authority,  which  they  professed,  seems  to  have 
been  owing  to  their  experience,  wisdom,  or  power,  more  than  to 
their  talents  for  oratory.  At  present  there  are  above  half  a  dozen 
speakers  in  the  two  houses,  who,  in  the  judgment  of  the  public, 
have  reached  very  near  the  same  pitch  of  eloquence  ;  and  no 
man  pretends  to  give  any  one  the  preference  above  the  rest. 
This  seems  to  me  a  certain  proof  that  none  of  them  have  attained 
much  beyond  a  mediocrity  in  their  art,  and  that  the  species  of 
eloquence,  which  they  aspire  to,  gives  no  exercise  to  the  sublimer 
faculties  of  the  mind,  but  may  be  reached  by  ordinary  talents  and 
a  slight  application.  A  hundred  cabinet-makers  in  London  can 
work  a  table  or  a  chair  equally  well ;  but  no  one  poet  can  write 
verses  with  such  spirit  and  elegance  as  Mr.  Pope. 

We  are  told  that,  when  Demosthenes  was  to  plead,  all  ingenious 
men  flocked  to  Athens  from  the  most  remote  parts  of  Greece,  as 
to  the  most  celebrated  spectacle  of  the  world.2  At  London  you 
may  see  men  sauntering  in  the  court  of  requests,  while  the  most 
important  debate  is  carrying  on  in  the  two  houses ;  and  many  do 
not  think  themselves  sufficiently  compensated  for  the  losing  of 
their  dinners  by  all  the  eloquence  of  our  most  celebrated  speakers. 
When  old  Gibber  is  to  act,  the  curiosity  of  several  is  more  excited 
than  when  our  prime  minister  is  to  defend  himself  from  a  motion 
for  his  removal  or  impeachment. 

Even  a  person  unacquainted  with  the  noble  remains  of  ancient 
orators,  may  judge  from  a  few  strokes  that  the  style  or  species  of 
their  eloquence  was  infinitely  more  sublime  than  that  which  mod- 
ern orators  aspire  to.  How  absurd  would  it  appear,  in  our  tem- 
perate and  calm  speakers,  to  make  use  of  an  Apostrophe,  like 
that  noble  one  of  Demosthenes,  so  much  celebrated  by  Quintilian 
and  Longinus,  when  justifying  the  unsuccessful  battle  of  Chseronea, 
he  breaks  out,  "  No,  my  Fellow  Citizens,  No  :  You  have  not  erred. 
I  swear  by  the  names  of  those  heroes,  who  fought  for  the  same 
cause  in  the  plains  of  Marathon  and  Plataea  !  "  Who  could  now 
endure  such  a  bold  and  poetical  figure  as  that  which  Cicero  em- 

2  CiCERO,  ZV  Claris  Oratoribus,  84  (289). 


400  DAVID  HUME. 

ploys,  after  describing  in  the  most  tragical  terms  the  crucifixion  of 
a  Roman  citizen  :  "  Should  I  paint  the  horrors  of  this  scene,  not 
to  Roman  citizens,  not  to  the  allies  of  our  state,  not  to  those  who 
have  ever  heard  of  the  Roman  Name,  not  even  to  men,  but  to 
brute  creatures ;  or,  to  go  farther,  should  I  lift  up  my  voice  in  the 
most  desolate  solitude,  to  the  rocks  and  mountains,  yet  should  I 
surely  see  those  rude  and  inanimate  parts  of  nature  moved  with 
horror  and  indignation  at  the  recital  of  so  enormous  an  action?"3 
With  what  a  blaze  of  eloquence  must  such  a  sentence  be  sur- 
rounded to  give  it  grace,  or  cause  it  to  make  any  impression  on 
the  hearers  ?  And  what  noble  art  and  sublime  talents  are  requisite 
to  arrive,  by  just  degrees,  at  a  sentiment  so  bold  and  excessive  : 
to  inflame  the  audience,  so  as  to  make  them  accompany  the 
speaker  in  such  violent  passions,  and  such  elevated  conceptions  ; 
and  to  conceal,  under  a  torrent  of  eloquence,  the  artifice  by 
which  all  this  is  effectuated  !  Should  this  sentiment  even  appear 
to  us  excessive,  as  perhaps  it  justly  may,  it  will  at  least  serve  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  stile  of  ancient  eloquence,  where  such  swelling  ex- 
pressions were  not  rejected  as  wholly  monstrous  and  gigantic. 

Suitable  to  this  vehemence  of  thought  and  expression,  was  the 
vehemence  of  action,  observed  in  the  ancient  orators.  The  sup- 
plosio  pedis,  or  stamping  with  the  foot,  was  one  of  the  most  usual 
and  moderate  gestures  which  they  made  use  of;4  though  that  is 
now  esteemed  too  violent,  either  for  the  senate,  bar,  or  pulpit, 
and  is  only  admitted  into  the  theatre  to  accompany  the  most  vio- 
lent passions,  which  are  there  represented. 

One  is  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  what  cause  we  may  ascribe  so 
sensible  a  decline  of  eloquence  in  later  ages.  The  genius  of  man- 
kind at  all  times,  is,  perhaps,  equal.  The  moderns  have  applied 
themselves,  with  great  industry  and  success,  to  all  the  other  arts 
and  sciences  :  and  a  learned  nation  possesses  a  popular  govern- 
ment ;  a  circumstance  which  seems  requisite  for  the  full  display  of 
these  noble  talents  :  but  notwithstanding  all  these  advantages,  our 

8  CICERO,  Against  Verres. 

4  CICERO,  De  Claris  Oratoribus,  38  (141). 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,  AND  LITERARY.         401 

progress  in  eloquence  is  very  inconsiderable,  in  comparison  of  the 
advances  which  we  have  made  in  all  other  parts  of  learning. 

Shall  we  assert  that  the  strains  of  ancient  eloquence  are  unsuit- 
able to  our  age,  and  ought  not  to  be  imitated  by  modern  orators  ? 
Whatever  reasons  may  be  made  use  of  to  prove  this,  I  am  per- 
suaded they  will  be  found,  upon  examination,  to  be  unsound  and 
unsatisfactory. 

First,  it  may  be  said,  that,  in  ancient  times,  during  the  flourish- 
ing period  of  Greek  and  Roman  learning,  the  municipal  laws,  in 
every  state,  were  but  few  and  simple,  and  the  decision  of  causes 
was,  in  a  great  measure,  left  to  the  equity  and  common  sense  of 
the  judges.  The  study  of  the  laws  was  not  then  a  laborious  occu- 
pation, requiring  the  drudgery  of  a  whole  life  to  finish  it,  and 
incompatible  with  every  other  study  or  profession.  The  great 
statesmen  and  generals  among  the  Romans  were  all  lawyers,  and 
Cicero,  to  shew  the  facility  of  acquiring  this  science,  declares  that 
in  the  midst  of  all  his  occupations,  he  would  undertake,  in  a  few 
days,  to  make  himself  a  complete  civilian.  Now,  where  a  pleader 
addresses  himself  to  the  equity  of  his  judges,  he  has  much  more 
room  to  display  his  eloquence  than  where  he  must  draw  his  argu- 
ments from  strict  laws,  statutes,  and  precedents.  In  the  former 
case  many  circumstances  must  be  taken  in ;  many  personal  consid- 
erations regarded  ;  and  even  favour  and  inclination,  which  it  belongs 
to  the  orator  by  his  art  and  eloquence  to  conciliate,  may  be 
disguised  under  the  appearance  of  equity.  But  how  shall  a 
modern  lawyer  have  leisure  to  quit  his  toilsome  occupations,  in 
order  to  gather  the  flowers  of  Parnassus  ?  Or  what  opportunity 
shall  he  have  of  displaying  them  amidst  the  rigid  and  subtle  argu- 
ments, objections  and  replies,  which  he  is  obliged  to  make  use  of? 
The  greatest  genius,  and  greatest  orator,  who  should  pretend  to 
plead  before  the  Chancellor,  after  a  month's  study  of  the  laws, 
would  only  labour  to  make  himself  ridiculous. 

I  am  ready  to  own  that  this  circumstance,  of  the  multiplicity 
and  intricacy  of  laws,  is  a  discouragement  to  eloquence  in  modern 
times.  But  I  assert  that  it  will  not  entirely  account  for  the  decline 


402  DAVID  HUME. 

of  that  noble  art.  It  may  banish  oratory  from  Westminster- Hall, 
but  not  from  either  house  of  parliament.  Among  the  Athenians, 
the  Areopagites  expressly  forbade  all  allurements  of  eloquence ; 
and  some  have  pretended  that  in  the  Greek  orations,  written  in 
the  judiciary  form,  there  is  not  so  bold  and  rhetorical  a  style  as 
appears  in  the  Roman.  But  to  what  a  pitch  did  the  Athenians 
carry  their  eloquence  in  the  deliberative  kind,  when  affairs  of  state 
were  canvassed,  and  the  liberty,  happiness,  and  honour  of  the 
republic  were  the  subject  of  debate  ?  Disputes  of  this  nature  ele- 
vate the  genius  above  all  others,  and  give  the  fullest  scope  to 
eloquence ;  and  such  disputes  are  very  frequent  in  this  nation. 

Secondly,  it  may  be  pretended  that  the  decline  of  eloquence  is 
owing  to  the  superior  good  sense  of  the  moderns,  who  reject  with 
disdain  all  those  rhetorical  tricks  employed  to  seduce  the  judges, 
and  will  admit  of  nothing  but  solid  argument  in  any  debate  of 
deliberation.  If  a  man  be  accused  of  murder,  the  fact  must  be 
proved  by  witnesses  and  evidence ;  and  the  laws  will  afterwards 
determine  the  punishment  of  the  criminal.  It  would  be  ridicu- 
lous to  describe,  in  strong  colours,  the  horror  and  cruelty  of  the 
action :  to  introduce  the  relations  of  the  dead ;  and  at  a  signal, 
make  them  throw  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  judges,  imploring 
justice  with  tears  and  lamentations  :  and  still  more  ridiculous 
would  it  be,  to  employ  a  picture  representing  the  bloody  deed,  in 
order  to  move  the  judges  by  the  display  of  so  tragical  a  spectacle, 
though  we  know  that  this  artifice  was  sometimes  practised  by  the 
pleaders  of  old.5  Now,  banish  the  pathetic  from  public  discourses, 
and  you  reduce  the  speakers  merely  to  modern  eloquence  ;  that  is, 
to  good  sense  delivered  in  proper  expression. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  acknowledged  that  our  modern  customs,  or 
our  superior  good  sense,  if  you  will,  should  make  our  orators  more 
cautious  and  reserved  than  the  ancient,  in  attempting  to  inflame 
the  passions,  or  elevate  the  imagination  of  their  audience  :  but  I 
see  no  reason  why  it  should  make  them  despair  absolutely  of 
succeeding  in  that  attempt.  It  should  make  them  redouble  their 

6  QUINTILIAN,  Book  VI.,  Chap.  I. 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         403 

art,  not  abandon  it  entirely.  The  ancient  orators  seem  also  to 
have  been  on  their  guard  against  this  jealousy  of  their  audience  : 
but  they  took  a  different  way  of  eluding  it.6  They  hurried  away 
with  such  a  torrent  of  sublime  and  pathetic  that  they  left  their 
hearers  no  leisure  to  perceive  the  artifice,  by  which  they  were 
deceived.  Nay,  to  consider  the  matter  aright,  they  were  not 
deceived  by  any  artifice.  The  orator,  by  the  force  of  his  own 
genius  and  eloquence,  first  inflamed  himself  with  anger,  indigna- 
tion, pity,  sorrow,  and  then  communicated  those  impetuous  move- 
ments to  his  audience. 

Does  any  man  pretend  to  have  more  good  sense  than  Julius 
Caesar  ?  yet  that  haughty  conqueror,  we  know,  was  so  subdued  by 
the  charms  of  Cicero's  eloquence  that  he  was,  in  a  manner,  con- 
strained to  change  his  settled  purpose  and  resolution,  and  to 
absolve  a  criminal,  whom,  before  that  orator  pleaded,  he  was  de- 
termined to  condemn. 

Some  objections,  I  own,  notwithstanding  his  vast  success,  may 
lie  against  some  passages  of  the  Roman  orator.  He  is  too  florid 
and  rhetorical :  His  figures  are  too  striking  and  palpable  :  the 
divisions  of  his  discourse  are  drawn  chiefly  from  the  rules  of  the 
schools  :  and  his  wit  disdains  not  always  the  artifice  even  of  a 
pun,  rhyme,  or  jingle  of  words.  The  Grecian  addressed  himself 
to  an  audience  much  less  refined  than  the  Roman  senate  or 
judges.  The  lowest  vulgar  of  Athens  were  his  sovereigns  and  the 
arbiters  of  his  eloquence.7  Yet  is  his  manner  more  chaste  and 
austere  than  that  of  the  other.  Could  it  be  copied,  its  success 
would  be  infallible  over  a  modern  assembly.  It  is  rapid  harmony, 
exactly  adjusted  to  the  sense  :  it  is  vehement  reasoning,  without 
any  appearance  of  art :  it  is  disdain,  anger,  boldness,  freedom, 
involved  in  a  continued  stream  of  argument :  and  of  all  human  pro- 
ductions, the  orations  of  Demosthenes  present  to  us  the  models 
which  approach  the  nearest  to  perfection. 

6  LONGINUS,  Chap.  XV. 

"  "  The  orators  formed  the  taste  of  the  Athenian  people,  not  the  people  of 
the  orators."  —  From  HUME'S  note. 


404  DAVID  HUME. 

Thirdly,  it  may  be  pretended  that  the  disorders  of  the  ancient 
governments,  and  the  enormous  crimes  of  which  the  citizens  were 
often  guilty,  afforded  much  ampler  matter  for  eloquence  than  can 
be  met  with  among  the  moderns.  Were  there  no  Verres  or  Cati- 
line, there  would  be  no  Cicero.  But  that  this  reason  can  have  no 
great  influence,  is  evident.  It  would  be  easy  to  find  a  Philip  in 
modern  times ;  but  where  shall  we  find  a  Demosthenes? 

What  remains,  then,  but  that  we  lay  the  blame  on  the  want  of 
genius,  or  of  judgment  in  our  speakers,  who  either  found  them- 
selves incapable  of  reaching  the  heights  of  ancient  eloquence,  or 
rejected  all  such  endeavours  as  unsuitable  to  the  spirit  of  modern 
assemblies  ?  A  few  successful  attempts  of  this  nature  might  rouze 
the  genius  of  the  nation,  excite  the  emulation  of  the  youth,  and 
accustom  our  ears  to  a  more  sublime  and  more  pathetic  elocution 
than  what  we  have  been  hitherto  entertained  with.  There  is  cer- 
tainly something  accidental  in  the  first  rise  and  the  progress  of 
the  arts  in  any  nation.  I  doubt  whether  a  very  satisfactory  reason 
can  be  given  why  ancient  Rome,  though  it  received  all  its  refine- 
ments from  Greece,  could  attain  only  to  a  relish  for  statuary, 
painting,  and  architecture,  without  reaching  the  practice  of  these 
arts  :  while  modern  Rome  has  been  excited  by  a  few  remains 
found  among  the  ruins  of  antiquity,  and  has  produced  artists  of 
the  greatest  eminence  and  distinction.  Had  such  a  cultivated 
genius  for  oratory,  as  Waller's  for  poetry,  arisen,  during  the  civil 
wars,  when  liberty  began  to  be  fully  established,  and  popular 
assemblies  to  enter  into  all  the  most  material  points  of  govern- 
ments ;  I  am  persuaded  so  illustrious  an  example  would  have 
given  a  quite  different  turn  to  British  eloquence,  and  made  us 
reach  the  perfection  of  the  ancient  model.  Our  orators  would 
then  have  done  honour  to  their  country,  as  well  as  our  poets, 
geometers,  and  philosophers,  and  British  Ciceros  have  appeared, 
as  well  as  British  Archimedeses  and  Virgils. 

It  is  seldom  or  never  found,  when  a  false  taste  in  poetry  or 
eloquence  prevails  among  any  people,  that  it  has  been  preferred 
to  a  true,  upon  comparison  and  reflection.  It  commonly  prevails 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         405 

merely  from  ignorance  of  the  true,  and  from  the  want  of  perfect 
models,  to  lead  men  into  a  juster  apprehension,  and  more  refined 
relish  of  those  productions  of  genius.  When  these  appear,  they 
soon  unite  all  suffrages  in  their  favour,  and,  by  their  natural  and 
powerful  charms,  gain  over  even  the  most  prejudiced,  to  the  love 
and  admiration  of  them.  The  principles  of  every  passion,  and  of 
every  sentiment,  is  \_sic~\  in  every  man  ;  and  when  touched  prop- 
erly, they  rise  to  life,  and  warm  the  heart,  and  convey  that  satis- 
faction, by  which  a  work  of  genius  is  distinguished  from  the 
adulterate  beauties  of  a  capricious  wit  and  fancy.  And  if  this 
observation  be  true  with  regard  to  all  the  liberal  arts,  it  must  be 
peculiarly  so  with  regard  to  eloquence ;  which,  being  merely  cal- 
culated for  the  public,  and  for  men  of  the  world,  cannot,  with  any 
pretence  of  reason,  appeal  from  the  people  to  more  refined 
judges ;  but  must  submit  to  the  public  verdiot,  without  reserve 
or  limitation.  Whoever,  upon  comparison,  is  deemed  by  a  com- 
mon audience  the  greatest  orator,  ought  most  certainly  to  be  pro- 
nounced such  by  men  of  science  and  erudition.  And  though  an 
indifferent  speaker  may  triumph  for  a  long  time,  and  be  esteemed 
altogether  perfect  by  the  vulgar,  who  are  satisfied  with  his  accom- 
plishments, and  know  not  in  what  he  is  defective  ;  yet,  whenever 
the  true  genius  arises,  he  draws  to  him  the  attention  of  every  one, 
and  immediately  appears  superior  to  his  rival. 

Now  to  judge  by  this  rule,  ancient  eloquence,  that  is,  the  sublime 
and  passionate,  is  of  a  much  juster  taste  than  the  modern,  or  the 
argumentative  and  rational ;  and,  if  properly  executed,  will  always 
have  more  command  and  authority  over  mankind.  We  are  satis- 
fied with  our  mediocrity,  because  we  have  had  no  experience  of 
anything  better;  but  the  ancients  had  experience  of  both,  and 
upon  comparison,  gave  the  preference  to  that  kind  of  which  they 
have  left  us  such  applauded  models.  For,  if  I  mistake  not,  our 
modern  eloquence  is  of  the  same  style  or  species  with  that  which 
ancient  critics  denominated  Attic  eloquence,  that  is,  calm,  elegant, 
and  sublime,  which  instructed  the  reason  more  than  affected  the 
passions,  and  never  raised  its  tone  above  argument  or  common 


406  DAVID  HUME. 

discourse.  Such  was  the  eloquence  of  Lysias  among  the  Athen- 
ians, and  of  Calvus  among  the  Romans.  These  were  esteemed 
in  their  time ;  but  when  compared  with  Demosthenes  and  Cicero, 
were  eclipsed  like  a  taper  when  set  in  the  rays  of  a  meridian  sun. 
Those  latter  orators  possessed  the  same  elegance,  and  sublimity, 
and  force  of  argument,  with  the  former ;  but  what  rendered  them 
chiefly  admirable,  was  that  pathetic  and  sublime,  which,  on  proper 
occasions,  they  threw  into  their  discourse,  and  by  which  they 
commanded  the  resolution  of  their  audience. 

Of  this  species  of  eloquence  we  have  scarcely  had  any  instance 
in  England,  at  least  in  our  public  speakers.  In  our  writers,  we 
have  had  some  instances,  which  have  met  with  great  applause, 
and  might  assure  our  ambitious  youth  of  equal  or  superior  glory 
in  attempts  for  the  revival  of  ancient  eloquence.  Lord  Boling- 
broke's  productions,  with  all  their  defects  in  argument,  method, 
and  precision,  contain  a  force  and  energy,  which  our  orators 
scarcely  ever  aim  at ;  though  it  is  evident  that  such  an  elevated 
style  has  much  better  grace  in  a  speaker  than  in  a  writer,  and  is 
assured  of  more  prompt  and  more  astonishing  success.  It  is 
there  seconded  by  the  graces  of  voice  and  action  :  the  movements 
are  mutually  communicated  between  the  orator  and  the  audience  : 
and  the  very  aspect  of  a  large  assembly,  attentive  to  the  discourse 
of  one  man,  must  inspire  him  with  a  peculiar  elevation,  sufficient 
to  give  a  propriety  to  the  strongest  figures  and  expressions.  It  is 
true,  there  is  a  great  prejudice  against  set  speeches ;  and  a  man 
cannot  escape  ridicule  who  repeats  a  discourse  as  a  school-boy 
does  his  lesson,  and  takes  no  notice  of  anything  that  has  been 
advanced  in  the  course  of  the  debate.  But  where  is  the  necessity 
of  falling  into  this  absurdity?  A  public  speaker  must  know  be- 
forehand the  question  under  debate.  He  may  compose  all  the 
arguments,  objections,  and  answers,  such  as  he  thinks  will  be  most 
proper  for  his  discourse.8  If  anything  new  occur,  he  may  supply 

8  "  The  first  of  the  Athenians,  who  composed  and  wrote  his  speeches  was 
Pericles,  a  man  of  business  and  a  man  of  sense,  if  ever  there  was  one.    trpuros 
\6yov  iv  StKaoTTipiip  «/T«,  TUV  irpb  O.VTOV  y^i $ia£6vr<av,    [He  first  spoke 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,  AND  LITERARY.         407 

it  from  his  invention ;  nor  will  the  difference  be  very  apparent 
between  his  elaborate  and  his  extemporary  compositions.  The 
mind  naturally  continues  with  the  same  impetus  or  force  which 
it  has  acquired  by  its  motion ;  as  a  vessel,  once  impelled  by  the 
oars,  carries  on  its  course  for  some  time,  when  the  original  im- 
pulse is  suspended. 

I  shall  conclude  this  subject  with  observing,  that,  even  though 
our  modern  orators  should  not  elevate  their  style,  or  aspire  to  a 
rivalship  with  the  ancient ;  yet  is  there,  in  most  of  their  speeches, 
a  material  defect,  which  they  might  correct  without  departing 
from  that  composed  air  of  argument  and  reasoning  to  which  they 
limit  their  ambition.  Their  great  affectation  of  extemporary  dis- 
courses has  made  them  reject  all  order  and  method,  which  seems 
so  requisite  to  argument,  and  without  which  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  produce  an  entire  conviction  on  the  mind.  It  is  not  that  one 
would  recommend  many  divisions  in  a  public  discourse,  unless  the 
subject  very  evidently  offer  them :  but  it  is  easy,  without  this 
formality,  to  observe  a  method,  and  make  that  method  conspic- 
uous to  the  hearers,  who  will  be  infinitely  pleased  to  see  the  argu- 
ments rise  naturally  from  one  another,  and  will  retain  a  more 
thorough  persuasion  than  can  arise  from  the  strongest  reasons 
which  are  thrown  together  in  confusion. 

ESSAY  XXII.  — OF  TRAGEDY. 

It  seems  an  unaccountable  pleasure,  which  the  spectators  of  a 
well-written  tragedy  receive  from  sorrow,  terror,  anxiety,  and 
other  passions,  that  are  in  themselves  disagreeable  and  uneasy. 
The  more  they  are  touched  and  affected,  the  more  are  they  de- 
lighted with  the  spectacle ;  and  as  soon  as  the  uneasy  passions 
cease  to  operate,  the  piece  is  at  an  end.  One  scene  of  full  joy 
and  contentment  and  security,  is  the  utmost  that  any  composi- 
tion of  this  kind  can  bear ;  and  it  is  sure  always  to  be  the  conclud- 

a  written  speech  in  court,  as  his  predecessors  spoke  extempore.]  SUIDAS  on 
Pericles."  —  HUME'S  note. 


408  DAVID  HUME. 

ing  one.  If,  in  the  texture  of  the  piece,  there  be  interwoven  any 
scenes  of  satisfaction,  they  afford  only  faint  gleams  of  pleasure, 
which  are  thrown  in  by  way  of  variety,  and  in  order  to  plunge  the 
actors  into  deeper  distress  by  means  of  that  contract  and  disap- 
pointment. The  whole  art  of  the  poet  is  employed  in  rouzing  and 
supporting  the  compassion  and  indignation,  the  anxiety  and  re- 
sentment of  his  audience.  They  are  pleased  in  proportion  as 
they  are  afflicted,  and  never  are  so  happy  as  when  they  employ 
tears,  sobs,  and  cries,  to  give  vent  to  their  sorrow  and  relieve 
their  heart,  swoln  with  the  tenderest  sympathy  and  compassion. 

The  few  critics  who  have  had  some  tincture  of  philosophy, 
have  remarked  this  singular  phenomenon,  and  have  endeavoured 
to  account  for  it. 

L'Abbe  Dubos,  in  his  reflections  on  poetry  and  painting,  asserts 
that  nothing  is  in  general  so  disagreeable  to  the  mind  as  the 
languid,  listless  state  of  indolence,  into  which  it  falls  upon  the 
removal  of  all  passion  and  occupation.  To  get  rid  of  this  painful 
situation,  it  seeks  every  amusement  and  pursuit ;  business,  gam- 
ing, shews,  executions  ;  whatever  will  rouze  the  passions,  and  take 
its  attention  from  itself.  No  matter  what  the  passion  is  :  let  it  be 
disagreeable,  afflicting,  melancholy,  disordered,  it  is  still  better 
than  that  insipid  languor  which  arises  from  perfect  tranquillity  and 
repose. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  admit  this  account,  as  being,  at  least  in 
part,  satisfactory.  You  may  observe,  when  there  are  several 
tables  of  gaming,  that  all  the  company  run  to  those  where  the 
deepest  play  is,  even  though  they  find  not  there  the  best  players. 
The  view,  or,  at  least,  imagination  of  high  passions,  arising  from 
great  loss  or  gain,  affects  the  spectator  by  sympathy,  gives  him 
some  touches  of  the  same  passions,  and  serves  him  for  a  momen- 
tary entertainment.  It  makes  the  time  pass  the  easier  with  him, 
and  is  some  relief  to  that  oppression,  under  which  men  commonly 
labour,  when  left  entirely  to  their  own  thoughts  and  meditations. 

We  find  that  common  liars  always  magnify,  in  their  narrations, 
all  kinds  of  danger,  pain,  distress,  sickness,  deaths,  murders,  and 


ESSAYS,  MORAL,   POLITICAL,  AND  LITERARY.         409 

cruelties ;  as  well  as  joy,  beauty,  mirth,  and  magnificence.  It  is 
an  absurd  secret  which  they  have  for  pleasing  their  company,  fix- 
ing their  attention,  and  attaching  them  to  such  marvellous  relations 
by  the  passions  and  emotions  which  they  excite. 

There  is,  however,  a  difficulty  in  applying  to  the  present  subject, 
in  its  full  extent,  this  solution,  however  ingenious  and  satisfactory 
it  may  appear.  It  is  certain  that  the  same  object  of  distress, 
which  pleases  in  a  tragedy,  were  it  really  set  before  us,  would  give 
the  most  unfeigned  uneasiness,  though  it  be  then  the  most  effec- 
tual cure  to  languor  and  indolence.  Monsieur  Fontenelle  seems 
to  have  been  sensible  of  this  difficulty ;  and  accordingly  attempts 
another  solution  of  the  phenomenon ;  at  least  makes  some  addi- 
tion to  the  theory  above  mentioned.9 

"  Pleasure  and  pain,"  says  he,  "  which  are  two  sentiments  so 
"  different  in  themselves,  differ  not  so  much  in  their  cause.  From 
"  the  instance  of  tickling,  it  appears  that  the  movement  of  pleas- 
"  ure,  pushed  a  little  too  far,  becomes  pain ;  and  that  the  move- 
"  ment  of  pain,  a  little  moderated,  becomes  pleasure.  Hence  it 
"  proceeds  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  sorrow,  soft  and  agree- 
"  able  :  it  is  a  pain  weakened  and  diminished.  The  heart  likes 
"naturally  to  be  moved  and  affected.  Melancholy  objects  suit 
"  it,  and  even  disastrous  and  sorrowful,  provided  that  they  are 
"  softened  by  some  circumstance.  It  is  certain  that  on  the 
"  theatre,  the  representation  has  almost  the  effect  of  reality ;  yet 
"  it  has  not  altogether  that  effect.  However  we  may  be  hurried 
"  away  by  the  spectacle ;  whatever  dominion  the  senses  and  im- 
"  agination  may  usurp  over  the  reason,  there  still  lurks  at  the 
"  bottom  a  certain  idea  of  falsehood  in  the  whole  of  what  we  see. 
"  This  idea,  though  weak  and  disguised,  suffices  to  diminish  the 
"  pain  which  we  suffer  from  the  misfortunes  of  those  whom  we 
"  love,  and  to  reduce  that  affliction  to  such  a  pitch  as  converts 
"  it  into  a  pleasure.  We  weep  for  the  misfortune  of  a  hero,  to 
"  whom  we  are  attached.  In  the  same  instant  we  comfort  our- 
"  selves  by  reflecting  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  fiction  :  and  it  is 

9  Reflections  sur  la  poetique,  §  36. 


410  DAVID  HUME. 

"  precisely  that  mixture  of  sentiments,  which  composes  an  agree- 
"able  sorrow,  and  tears  that  delight  us.  But  as  that  affliction, 
"which  is  caused  by  exterior  and  sensible  objects,  is  stronger  than 
"the  consolation  which  arises  from  an  internal  reflection,  they 
"  are  the  effects  and  symptoms  of  sorrow  that  ought  to  predomi- 
"  nate  in  the  composition." 

This  solution  seems  just  and  convincing ;  but  perhaps  it  wants 
still  some  new  addition,  in  order  to  make  it  answer  fully  the  phe- 
nomenon, which  we  here  examine.  All  the  passions,  excited  by 
eloquence,  are  agreeable  in  the  highest  degree,  as  well  as  those 
which  are  moved  by  painting  and  the  theatre.  The  epilogues 
of  Cicero  are,  on  this  account  chiefly,  the  delight  of  every  reader 
of  taste  ;  it  is  difficult  to  read  some  of  them  without  the  deepest 
sympathy  and  sorrow.  His  merit  as  an  orator,  no  doubt,  depends 
much  on  his  success  in  this  particular.  When  he  had  raised  tears 
in  his  judges  and  all  his  audience,  they  were  then  the  most  highly 
delighted,  and  expressed  the  greatest  satisfaction  with  the  pleader. 
The  pathetic  description  of  the  butchery  made  by  Verres  of  the 
Sicilian  captains,  is  a  masterpiece  of  this  kind  :  but  I  believe  more 
will  affirm  that  the  being  present  at  a  melancholy  scene  of  that 
nature  would  afford  any  entertainment.  Neither  is  the  sorrow 
here  softened  by  fiction  :  for  the  audience  were  convinced  of  the 
reality  of  every  circumstance.  What  is  it  then,  which  in  this  case 
raises  a  pleasure  from  the  bosom  of  uneasiness,  so  to  speak ;  and 
a  pleasure,  which  still  retains  all  the  features  and  outward  symp- 
toms of  distress  and  sorrow? 

I  answer :  this  extraordinary  effect  proceeds  from  that  very  elo- 
quence, with  which  the  melancholy  scene  is  represented.  The 
genius  required  to  paint  objects  in  a  lively  manner,  the  art  em- 
ployed in  collecting  all  the  pathetic  circumstances,  the  judgment 
displayed  in  disposing  them  :  the  exercise,  I  say,  of  these  noble 
talents,  together  with  the  force  of  expression,  and  beauty  of  ora- 
torial  numbers,  diffuse  the  highest  satisfaction  on  the  audience, 
and  excite  the  most  delightful  movements.  By  this  means,  the 
uneasiness  of  the  melancholy  passions  is  not  only  overpowered 


ESSAYS,  MORAL,  POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         411 

and  effaced  by  something  stronger  of  an  opposite  kind  ;  but  the 
whole  impulse  of  those  passions  is  converted  into  pleasure,  and 
swells  the  delight  which  the  eloquence  raises  in  us.  The  same 
force  of  oratory,  employed  on  an  uninteresting  subject,  would  not 
please  half  so  much,  or  rather  would  appear  altogether  ridiculous, 
and  the  mind,  being  left  in  absolute  calmness  and  indifference, 
would  relish  none  of  those  beauties  of  imagination  or  expression 
which,  if  joined  to  passion,  give  it  such  exquisite  entertainment. 
The  impulse  or  vehemence,  arising  from  sorrow,  compassion,  in- 
dignation, receives  a  new  direction  from  the  sentiments  of  beauty. 
The  latter,  being  the  predominant  emotion,  seize  the  whole  mind, 
and  convert  the  former  into  themselves,  at  least  tincture  them  so 
strongly  as  totally  to  alter  their  nature.  And  the  soul,  being,  at 
the  same  time,  rouzed  by  passion,  and  charmed  by  eloquence, 
feels  on  the  whole  a  strong  movement,  which  is  altogether 
delightful. 

The  same  principle  takes  place  in  tragedy ;  with  this  addition, 
that  tragedy  is  an  imitation ;  and  imitation  is  always  of  itself 
agreeable.  This  circumstance  serves  still  farther  to  smooth  the 
motions  of  passion,  and  convert  the  whole  feeling  into  one  uniform 
and  strong  enjoyment.  Objects  of  the  greatest  terror  and  distress 
please  in  painting,  and  please  more  than  the  most  beautiful  ob- 
jects, that  appear  calm  and  indifferent.  The  affection,  rouzing 
the  mind,  excites  a  large  flock  of  spirit  and  vehemence ;  which  is 
all  transformed  into  pleasure  by  the  force  of  the  prevailing  move- 
ment. It  is  thus  the  fiction  of  tragedy  softens  the  passion  by  an 
infusion  of  a  new  feeling,  not  merely  by  weakening  or  diminishing 
the  sorrow.  You  may  by  degrees  weaken  a  real  sorrow  till  it 
totally  disappears ;  yet  in  none  of  its  gradations  will  it  ever  give 
pleasure ;  except,  perhaps,  by  accident,  to  a  man  sunk  under  le- 
thargic indolence,  whom  it  rouzes  from  that  languid  state. 

To  confirm  this  theory,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  produce  other 
instances,  where  the  subordinate  movement  is  converted  into  the 
predominant,  and  gives  force  to  it,  though  of  a  different,  and  even 
sometimes  though  of  a  contrary  nature. 


412  DAVID  HUME. 

Novelty  naturally  rouzes  the  mind  and  attracts  our  attention ; 
and  the  movements,  which  it  causes,  are  always  converted  into 
any  passion  belonging  to  the  object,  and  join  their  force  to  it. 
Whether  an  event  excite  joy  or  sorrow,  pride  or  shame,  anger  or 
good-will,  it  is  sure  to  produce  a  stronger  affection,  when  new  or 
musical.  And  though  novelty  of  itself  be  agreeable,  it  fortifies  the 
painful,  as  well  as  agreeable  passions. 

Had  you  any  intention  to  move  a  person  extremely  by  the  nar- 
ration of  any  event,  the  best  method  of  increasing  its  effect  would 
be  artfully  to  delay  informing  him  of  it,  and  first  to  excite  his 
curiosity  and  impatience  before  you  let  him  into  the  secret.  This 
is  the  artifice  practised  by  lago  in  the  famous  scene  of  Shakes- 
peare ;  and  every  spectator  is  sensible  that  Othello's  jealousy 
acquires  additional  force  from  his  preceding  impatience,  and  that 
the  subordinate  passion  is  here  readily  transformed  into  the  pre- 
dominant one. 

Difficulties  increase  passions  of  every  kind,  and  by  rouzing  our 
attention,  and  exciting  our  active  powers,  they  produce  an  emo- 
tion, which  nourishes  the  prevailing  affection. 

Parents  commonly  love  that  child  most,  whose  sickly,  infirm 
frame  of  body  has  occasioned  them  the  greatest  pains,  trouble, 
and  anxiety  in  rearing  him.  The  agreeable  sentiment  of  affection 
here  acquires  force  from  sentiments  of  uneasiness. 

Nothing  endears  so  much  a  friend  as  sorrow  for  his  death. 
The  pleasure  of  his  company  has  not  so  powerful  an  influence. 

Jealousy  is  a  painful  passion ;  yet  without  some  share  of  it,  the 
agreeable  affection  of  love  has  difficulty  to  subsist  in  its  full  force 
and  violence.  Absence  is  also  a  great  source  of  complaint  among 
lovers  and  gives  them  the  greatest  uneasiness :  yet  nothing  is 
more  favourable  to  their  mutual  passion  than  short  intervals  of  that 
kind ;  and  if  long  intervals  often  prove  fatal,  it  is  only  because, 
through  time,  men  are  accustomed  to  them,  and  they  cease  to 
give  uneasiness.  Jealousy  and  absence  in  love  compose  the  dolce 
peccante  of  the  Italians,  which  they  suppose  so  essential  to  all 
pleasure. 


ESSAYS,   MORAL,   POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         413 

There  is  a  fine  observation  of  the  elder  Pliny,  which  illustrates 
the  principle  here  insisted  on.  "  It  is  very  remarkable,"  says  he, 
"  that  the  last  works  of  celebrated  artists  which  they  left  imperfect, 
are  always  the  most  prized,  such  as  the  Iris  of  Aristides,  the 
Tyndarides  of  Nicomachus,  the  Medea  of  Timomachus,  and  the 
Venus  of  Apelles.  These  are  valued  even  above  their  finished 
productions  :  the  broken  lineaments  of  the  piece,  and  the  half- 
formed  idea  of  the  painter  are  carefully  studied,  and  our  very 
grief  for  that  curious  hand,  which  had  been  stopped  by  death,  is 
an  additional  increase  to  our  pleasure."10 

These  instances  (and  many  more  might  be  collected)  are  suffi- 
cient to  afford  us  some  insight  into  the  analogy  of  nature  and  to 
show  us  that  the  pleasure,  which  poets,  orators,  and  musicians 
give  us,  by  exciting  grief,  sorrow,  indignation,  compassion,  is  not 
so  extraordinary  or  paradoxical,  as  it  may  at  first  sight  appear. 
The  force  of  imagination,  the  energy  of  expression,  the  power  of 
numbers,  the  charms  of  imitation ;  all  these  are  naturally  of  them- 
selves delightful  to  the  mind  :  and  when  the  object  presented  lays 
also  hold  of  some  affection,  the  pleasure  still  rises  upon  us  by  the 
conversion  of  their  subordinate  movement  into  that  which  is  pre- 
dominant. The  passion,  though,  perhaps,  naturally,  and  when 
excited  by  the  simple  appearance  of  a  real  object,  it  may  be  pain- 
ful ;  yet  is  so  smoothed  and  softened,  and  mollified,  when  raised 
by  the  finer  arts,  that  it  affords  the  highest  entertainment. 

To  confirm  this  reasoning,  we  may  observe,  that  if  the  move- 
ments of  the  imagination  be  not  predominant  above  those  of  the 
passion,  a  contrary  effect  follows ;  and  the  former,  being  now 
subordinate,  is  converted  into  the  latter,  and  still  farther  increases 
the  pain  and  affliction  of  the  sufferer. 

Who  could  ever  think  of  it  as  a  good  expedient  for  comforting 
an  afflicted  parent,  to  exaggerate,  with  all  the  force  of  elocution, 
the  irreparable  loss  which  he  has  met  with  by  the  death  of  a 
favourite  child  ?  The  more  power  of  imagination  and  expression 
you  here  employ,  the  more  you  increase  his  despair  and  affliction. 

10  PLINY,  Book  XXXV.,  Chap.  11. 


414  DAVID  HUME. 

The  shame,  confusion,  and  terror  of  Verres,  no  doubt,  rose  in 
proportion  to  the  noble  eloquence  and  vehemence  of  Cicero  :  so 
also  did  his  pain  and  uneasiness.  These  former  passions  were 
too  strong  for  the  pleasure  arising  from  the  beauties  of  elocution ; 
and  operated,  though  from  the  same  principle,  yet  in  a  contrary 
manner,  to  the  sympathy,  compassion,  and  indignation  of  the 
audience. 

Lord  Clarendon,  when  he  approaches  towards  the  catastrophe 
of  the  royal  party,  supposes  that  his  narration  must  then  become 
infinitely  disagreeable ;  and  he  hurries  over  the  king's  death  with- 
out giving  us  one  circumstance  of  it.  He  considers  it  as  too  horrid 
a  scene  to  be  contemplated  with  any  satisfaction,  or  even  without 
the  utmost  pain  and  aversion.  He  himself,  as  well  as  the  readers 
of  that  age,  were  too  deeply  concerned  in  the  events,  and  felt  a 
pain  from  subjects,  which  an  historian  and  a  reader  of  another 
age  would  regard  as  the  most  pathetic  and  most  interesting,  and, 
by  consequence,  the  most  agreeable. 

An  action,  represented  in  tragedy,  may  be  too  bloody  and 
atrocious.  It  may  excite  such  movements  of  horror  as  will  not 
soften  into  pleasure ;  and  the  greatest  energy  of  expression,  be- 
stowed on  descriptions  of  that  nature,  serves  only  to  augment 
our  uneasiness.  Such  is  that  action  represented  in  the  Ambitious 
Step-mother,  where  a  venerable  old  man,  raised  to  the  height  of 
fury  and  despair,  rushes  against  a  pillar,  and  striking  his  head 
upon  it,  besmears  it  all  over  with  mingled  brains  and  gore.  The 
English  theatre  abounds  too  much  with  such  shocking  images. 

Even  the  common  sentiments  of  compassion  require  to  be 
softened  by  some  agreeable  affection,  in  order  to  give  a  thorough 
satisfaction  to  the  audience.  The  mere  suffering  of  plaintive  vir- 
tue, under  the  triumphant  tyranny  and  oppression  of  vice,  forms 
a  disagreeable  spectacle,  and  is  carefully  avoided  by  all  masters  of 
the  drama.  In  order  to  dismiss  the  audience  with  entire  satisfac- 
tion and  contentment,  the  virtue  must  either  convert  itself  into  a 
noble  courageous  despair,  or  the  vice  receive  its  proper  punish- 
ment, 


ESSAYS,  MORAL,  POLITICAL,   AND  LITERARY.         415 

Most  painters  appear  in  this  light  to  have  been  very  unhappy  in 
their  subjects.  As  they  wrought  much  for  churches  and  convents, 
they  have  chiefly  represented  such  horrible  subjects  as  crucifix- 
ions and  martyrdoms,  where  nothing  appears  but  tortures,  wounds, 
executions,  and  passive  suffering,  without  any  action  or  affection. 
When  they  turned  their  pencil  from  this  ghastly  mythology,  they 
had  commonly  recourse  to  Ovid,  whose  fictions,  though  passion- 
ate and  agreeable,  are  scarcely  natural  or  probable  enough  for 
painting. 

The  same  inversion  of  that  principle,  which  is  here  insisted  on, 
displays  itself  in  common  life,  as  in  the  effects  of  oratory  and 
poetry.  Raise  so  the  subordinate  passion  that  it  becomes  pre- 
dominant, it  swallows  up  that  affection  which  it  before  nourished 
and  increased.  Too  much  jealousy  extinguishes  love ;  too  much 
difficulty  renders  us  indifferent ;  too  much  sickness  and  infirmity 
disgusts  a  selfish  and  unkind  parent. 

What  so  disagreeable  as  the  dismal,  gloomy,  disastrous  stories, 
with  which  melancholy  people  entertain  their  companions?  The 
uneasy  passion  being  there  raised  alone,  unaccompanied  with  any 
spirit,  genius,  or  eloquence,  conveys  a  pure  uneasiness,  and  is 
attended  with  nothing  that  can  soften  it  into  pleasure  or  satis- 
faction. 


XX. 

OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

(1728-1774.) 
ESS  Ays. 

[Published  in  1765.] 

ESSAY  XXL  —  ON  THE  USE  OF  METAPHORS. 

OF  all  the  implements  of  poetry,  the  Metaphor  is  the  most 
generally  and  successfully  used,  and  indeed  may  be  termed  the 
Muse's  caduceus?  by  the  power  of  which  she  enchants  all  nature. 
The  metaphor  is  a  shorter  simile,  or  rather  a  kind  of  magical 
coat,  by  which  the  same  idea  assumes  a  thousand  different 
appearances.  Thus  the  word  plough,  which  originally  belongs  to 
agriculture,  being  metaphorically  used,  represents  the  motion  of  a 
ship  at  sea,  and  the  effects  of  old  age  upon  the  human  counte- 
nance — 

"...  Plough'd  the  bosom  of  the- deep  —  " 
"  And  time  had  plough'd  his  venerable  front." 

Almost  every  verb,  noun  substantive,  or  term  of  art  in  any  lan- 
guage, may  be  in  this  manner  applied  to  a  variety  of  subjects  with 
admirable  effect ;  but  the  danger  is  in  sowing  metaphors  too  thick, 
so  as  to  distract  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  and  incur  the 
imputation  of  deserting  nature,  in  order  to  hunt  after  conceits. 
Every  day  produces  poems  of  all  kinds  so  inflated  with  meta- 
phor, that  they  may  be  compared  to  the  gaudy  bubbles  blown 
up  from  a  solution  of  soap.  Longinus  is  of  opinion,  that  a  multi- 
tude of  metaphors  is  never  excusable,  except  in  those  cases  when 
the  passions  are  roused,  and  like  a  winter  torrent  rush  down  im- 

1  The  rod  of  Hermes  (Mercury),  the  herald  of  the  gods,  which  possessed 
magic  powers. 
416 


ESSAYS.  417 

petuous,  sweeping  them  with  collective  force  along.  He  brings  an 
instance  of  the  following  quotation  from  Demosthenes  :  "  Men," 
says  he,  "  profligates,  miscreants,  and  flatterers,  who  having  sever- 
ally preyed  upon  the  bowels  of  their  country,  at  length  betrayed 
her  liberty,  first  to  Philip,  and  now  again  to  Alexander;  who, 
placing  the  chief  felicity  of  life  in  the  indulgence  of  infamous  lusts 
and  appetites,  overturned  in  the  dust  that  freedom  and  indepen- 
dence which  was  the  chief  aim  and  end  of  all  our  worthy  ancestors." 

Aristotle  and  Theophrastus  seem  to  think  it  is  rather  too  bold 
and  hazardous  to  use  metaphors  so  freely,  without  interposing 
some  mitigating  phrase,  such  as, "  If  I  may  be  allowed  the  expres- 
sion," or  some  equivalent  excuse.  At  the  same  time,  Longinus 
finds  fault  with  Plato  for  hazarding  some  metaphors,  which  indeed 
appear  to  be  equally  affected  and  extravagant,  when  he  says,  "  the 
government  of  a  state  should  not  resemble  a  bowl  of  hot  ferment- 
ing wine,  but  a  cool  and  moderate  beverage  chastised  by  the  sober 
deity"  —  a  metaphor  that  signifies  nothing  more  than  "mixed  or 
lowered  with  water."  Demetrius  Phalereus  justly  observes,  that 
"  though  a  judicious  use  of  metaphors  wonderfully  raises,  sublimes, 
and  adorns  oratory  or  elocution,  yet  they  should  seem  to  flow 
naturally  from  the  subject ;  and  too  great  a  redundancy  of  them 
inflates  the  discourse  to  a  mere  rhapsody."  The  same  observation 
will  hold  in  poetry ;  and  the  more  liberal  or  sparing  use  of  them 
will  depend  in  a  great  measure  on  the  nature  of  the  subject. 

Passion  itself  is  very  figurative,  and  often  bursts  out  into  meta- 
phors ;  but  in  touching  the  pathos,  the  poet  must  be  perfectly  well 
acquainted  with  the  emotions  of  the  human  soul,  and  carefully 
distinguish  between  those  metaphors  which  rise  glowing  from 
the  heart,  and  those  cold  conceits  which  are  engendered  in  the 
fancy.  Should  one  of  these  last  unfortunately  intervene,  it  will  be 
apt  to  destroy  the  whole  effect  of  the  most  pathetical  incident  or 
situation.  Indeed,  it  requires  the  most  delicate  taste  and  a  con- 
summate knowledge  of  propriety  to  employ  metaphors  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  avoid  what  the  ancients  call  the  TO  ij/vxpbv,  the  frigid, 
or  false  sublime.  Instances  of  this  kind  were  frequent  even  among 


418  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

the  correct  ancients.  Sappho  herself  is  blamed  for  using  the 
hyperbole  AeuicoTepoi  x^ovo<;>  whiter  than  snow.  Demetrius  is  so 
nice  as  to  be  disgusted  at  the  simile  of  swift  as  the  wind;  though 
in  speaking  of  a  race-horse,  we  know  from  experience  that  this 
is  not  even  an  hyperbole.  He  would  have  had  more  reason  to 
censure  that  kind  of  metaphor  which  Aristotle  styles  KO.T'  eV«fpyeiav 
[forcible],  exhibiting  things  inanimate  as  endued  with  sense  and 
reason  ;  such  as  that  of  the  sharp-pointed  arrow,  eager  to  take 
wing  among  the  crowd. 


Not  but  that,  in  descriptive  poetry,  this  figure  is  often  allowed 
and  admired.  The  cruel  sword,  the  ruthless  dagger,  the  ruffian 
blast,  are  epithets  which  frequently  occur.  The  faithful  bosom  of 
the  earth,  the  joyous  boughs,  the  trees  that  admire  their  images 
reflected  in  the  stream,  and  many  other  examples  of  this  kind,  are 
found  disseminated  through  the  works  of  our  best  modern  poets  : 
yet  still  they  must  be  sheltered  under  the  privilege  of  the  poetica 
licentia  ;  and,  except  in  poetry,  they  would  give  offence. 

More  chaste  metaphors  are  freely  used  in  all  kinds  of  writing  ; 
more  sparingly  in  history,  and  more  abundantly  in  rhetoric  :  we 
have  seen  that  Plato  indulges  in  them  even  to  excess.  The  ora- 
tions of  Demosthenes  are  animated  and  even  inflamed  with  meta- 
phors, some  of  them  so  bold  as  even  to  entail  upon  him  the 
censure  of  the  critics. 

Tore  TO?  Hv0o)vi  TW  prjTOpi  peovri  KO.&'  v/j.£)v.3 


"Then  I  did  not  yield  to  Python  the  orator,  when  he  overflowed 
you  with  a  tide  of  eloquence."  Cicero  is  still  more  liberal  in  the 
use  of  them  ;  he  ransacks  all  nature,  and  pours  forth  a  redun- 
dancy of  figures,  even  with  a  lavish  hand.  Even  the  chaste 
Xenophon,  who  generally  illustrates  his  subject  by  way  of  simile, 
sometimes  ventures  to  produce  an  expressive  metaphor,  such  as, 

2  HOMER,  Iliad,  IV.  126. 

8  After  DEMOSTHENES,  On  the  Crown.  —  Reiske,  272  (Bekker,  170),  19,  20. 


ESSA  VS.  419 

"  part  of  the  phalanx  fluctuated  in  the  march  "  ;  and  indeed  noth- 
ing can  be  more  significant  than  this  word  e&Kv/uT/ve 4  to  represent 
a  body  of  men  staggered,  and  on  the  point  of  giving  way.  Arm- 
strong has  used  the  word  fluctuate  with  admirable  efficacy,  in  his 
philosophical  poem,  entitled,  "  The  Art  of  Preserving  Health." 

"  O  when  the  growling  winds  contend,  and  all 
The  sounding  forest  fluctuates  in  the  storm, 
To  sink  in  warm  repose,  and  hear  the  din 
Howl  o'er  the  steady  battlements  —  " 

The  word  fluctuate  on  this  occasion  not  only  exhibits  an  idea 
of  struggling,  but  also  echoes  to  the  sense  like  the  typi&v  8c  pa-xn 5 
of  Homer ;  which,  by  the  by,  it  is  impossible  to  render  into  Eng- 
lish, for  the  verb  <£piWo>  signifies  not  only  to  stand  erect  like 
prickles,  as  a  grove  of  lances,  but  also  to  make  a  noise  like  the 
crashing  of  armor,  the  hissing  of  javelins,  and  the  splinters  of 
spears. 

Over  and  above  excess  of  figures,  a  young  author  is  apt  to  run 
into  a  confusion  of  mixed  metaphors,  which  leave  the  sense  dis- 
jointed, and  distract  the  imagination.  Shakspeare  is  often  guilty 
of  these  irregularities.  The  soliloquy  in  Hamlet,  which  we  have 
so  often  heard  extolled  in  terms  of  admiration,  is,  in  our  opinion, 
a  heap  of  absurdities,  whether  we  consider  the  situation,  the  sen- 
timent, the  argumentation,  or  the  poetry.  Hamlet  is  informed  by 
the  Ghost  that  his  father  was  murdered,  and  therefore  he  is 
tempted  to  murder  himself,  even  after  he  had  promised  to  take 
vengeance  on  the  usurper,  and  expressed  the  utmost  eagerness  to 
achieve  this  enterprise.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  the  least 
reason  to  wish  for  death ;  but  every  motive  which  may  be  sup- 
posed to  influence  the  mind  of  a  young  prince,  concurred  to 
render  life  desirable  —  revenge  towards  the  usurper;  love  for 
the  fair  Ophelia ;  and  the  ambition  of  reigning.  Besides,  when 
he  had  an  opportunity  of  dying  without  being  accessary  to  his 

4  XENOPHON,  Anabasis,  I.  8,  18. 

6  The  line  of  battle  bristled  [with  long  spears],  —  HOMER,  Iliad,  XIII.  339. 


420  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

own  death ;  when  he  had  nothing  to  do  but,  in  obedience  to  his 
uncle's  command,  to  allow  himself  to  be  conveyed  quietly  to 
England  where  he  was  sure  of  suffering  death  ;  instead  of  amusing 
himself  with  meditations  on  mortality,  he  very  wisely  consulted 
the  means  of  self-preservation,  turned  the  tables  upon  his  attend- 
ants, and  returned  to  Denmark.  But  granting  him  to  have  been 
reduced  to  the  lowest  state  of  despondence,  surrounded  with 
nothing  but  honour  and  despair,  sick  of  this  life  and  eager  to 
tempt  futurity,  we  shall  see  how  far  he  argues  like  a  philosopher. 

In  order  to  support  this  general  charge  against  an  author  so 
universally  held  in  veneration,  whose  very  errors  have  helped  to 
sanctify  his  character  among  the  multitude,  we  will  descend  to 
particulars,  and  analyze  this  famous  soliloquy. 

Hamlet,  having  assumed  the  disguise  of  madness,  as  a  cloak 
under  which  he  might  the  more  effectually  revenge  his  father's 
death  upon  the  murderer  and  usurper,  appears  alone  upon  the 
stage  in  a  pensive  and  melancholy  attitude,  and  communes  with 
himself  in  these  words  : 

"  To  be,  or  not  to  be?  that  is  the  question  :  —  " 6 

We  have  already  observed  that  there  is  not  any  apparent  cir- 
cumstance in  the  fate  or  situation  of  Hamlet,  that  should  prompt 
him  to  harbour  one  thought  of  self-murder ;  and  therefore  these 
expressions  of  despair  imply  an  impropriety  in  point  of  character. 
But  supposing  his  condition  was  truly  desperate,  and  he  saw  no 
possibility  of  repose  but  in  the  uncertain  harbour  of  death,  let  us 
see  in  what  manner  he  argues  on  that  subject.  The  question  is, 
"  To  be,  or  not  to  be  "  ;  to  die  by  my  own  hand,  or  live  and  suffer 
the  miseries  of  life.  He  proceeds  to  explain  the  alternative  in 
these  terms,  "  Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer,  or  endure, 
the  frowns  of  fortune,  or  to  take  arms,  and  by  opposing,  end 
them."  Here  he  deviates  from  his  first  proposition,  and  death  is 
no  longer  the  question.  The  only  doubt  is,  whether  he  will  stoop 
to  misfortune,  or  exert  his  faculties  in  order  to  surmount  it.  This 

6  Here  follows  the  soliloquy,  for  which  see  Hamlet,  III.  I,  56-88. 


ESSA  YS.  421 

surely  is  the  obvious  meaning,  and  indeed  the  only  meaning  that 
can  be  implied  in  these  words, 

"  Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind,  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune, 
Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 
And  by  opposing,  end  them." 

He  now  drops  this  idea,  and  reverts  to  his  reasoning  on  death, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  owns  himself  deterred  from  suicide  by 
the  thoughts  of  what  may  follow  death  : 

"...  the  dread  of  something  after  death,  — 
That  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourne 
No  traveller  returns." 

This  might  be  a  good  argument  in  a  Heathen  or  Pagan,  and 
such  indeed  Hamlet  really  was ;  but  Shakspeare  has  already 
represented  him  as  a  good  Catholic,  who  must  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  the  truths  of  revealed  religion,  and  says  expressly 
in  this  very  play, 

"...  had  not  the  Everlasting  fix'd 
His  canon  'gainst  self-murder." 

Moreover,  he  had  just  been  conversing  with  his  father's  spirit, 
piping  hot  from  purgatory,  which,  we  would  presume,  is  not  within 
the  bourne  of  this  world.  The  dread  of  what  may  happen  after 
death,  says  he, 

"  Makes  us  rather  bear  the  ills  we  have, 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of." 

This  declaration  at  least  implies  some  knowledge  of  the  other 
world,  and  expressly  asserts  that  there  must  be  ills  in  that  world, 
though  what  kind  of  ills  they  are  we  do  not  know.  The  argu- 
ment, therefore,  may  be  reduced  to  this  lemma :  this  world 
abounds  with  ills  which  I  fear ;  the  other  world  abounds  with 
ills,  the  nature  of  which  I  do  not  know ;  therefore,  I  will  rather 
bear  those  ills  I  have,  "  than  fly  to  others  which  I  know  not 
of "  ;  a  deduction  amounting  to  a  certainty,  with  respect  to  the 


422  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

only  circumstance  that  should  create  a  doubt,  namely,  whether 
in  death  he  should  rest  from  his  misery ;  and  if  he  was  certain 
there  were  evils  in  the  next  world,  as  well  as  in  this,  he  had  no 
room  to  reason  at  all  about  the  matter.  What  alone  could  justify 
his  thinking  on  the  subject,  would  have  been  the  hope  of  flying 
from  the  ills  of  this  world,  without  encountering  any  others  in  the 
next. 

Nor  is  Hamlet  more  accurate  in  the  following  reflection : 

"Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all." 

A  bad  conscience  will  make  us  cowards ;  but  a  good  conscience 
will  make  us  brave.  It  does  not  appear  that  anything  lay  heavy  on 
his  conscience ;  and  from  the  premises  we  cannot  help  inferring, 
that  conscience  in  this  case  was  entirely  out  of  the  question. 
Hamlet  was  deterred  from  suicide  by  a  full  conviction,  that,  in  fly- 
ing from  one  sea  of  troubles  which  he  did  know,  he  should  fall 
into  another  which  he  did  not  know. 

His  whole  chain  of  reasoning,  therefore,  seems  inconsistent  and 
incongruous.  "  I  am  doubtful  whether  I  should  live,  or  do  vio- 
lence upon  my  own  life ;  for  I  know  not  whether  it  is  more  hon- 
ourable to  bear  misfortune  patiently,  than  to  exert  myself  in  op- 
posing misfortune,  and  by  opposing,  end  it."  Let  us  throw  it 
into  the  form  of  a  syllogism,  it  will  stand  thus  :  "  I  am  oppressed 
with  ills ;  I  know  not  whether  it  is  more  honourable  to  bear  those 
ills  patiently,  or  to  end  them  by  taking  arms  against  them ;  ergo, 
I  am  doubtful  whether  I  should  slay  myself  or  live.  To  die,  is  no 
mflre  than  to  sleep  ;  and  to  say  that  by  a  sleep  we  end  the  heart- 
ache," &c.,  "  'tis  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished."  Now 
to  say  it,  was  of  no  consequence  unless  it  had  been  true.  "  I  am 
afraid  of  the  dreams  that  may  happen  in  that  sleep  of  death ;  and 
I  choose  rather  to  bear  those  ills  I  have  in  this  life,  than  fly  to 
other  ills  in  that  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourne  no 
traveller  ever  returns.  I  have  ills  that  are  almost  insupportable  in 
this  life.  I  know  not  what  is  in  the  next,  because  it  is  an  undis- 
covered country  :  ergo,  I  had  rather  bear  those  ills  I  have,  than  fly 


ESS  A  YS.  423 

to  others  which  I  know  not  of."  Here  the  conclusion  is  by  no 
means  warranted  by  the  premises.  "  I  am  sore  afflicted  in  this  life  ; 
but  I  will  rather  bear  the  afflictions  of  this  life,  than  plunge  myself 
in  the  afflictions  of  another  life  ;  ergo ,  conscience  makes  cowards  of 
us  all."  But  this  conclusion  would  justify  the  logician  in  saying, 
negatur  consequens ;7  for  it  is  entirely  detached  both  from  the 
major  and  minor  proposition. 

This  soliloquy  is  not  less  exceptionable  in  the  propriety  of  ex- 
pression, than  in  the  chain  of  argumentation.  "To  die  —  to 
sleep  —  no  more,"  contains  an  ambiguity,  which  all  the  art  of 
punctuation  cannot  remove  ;  for  it  may  signify  that  "  to  die  "  is  to 
sleep  no  more ;  or  the  expression  "  no  more,"  may  be  considered 
as  an  abrupt  apostrophe  in  thinking,  as  if  he  meant  to  say  "  no 
more  of  that  reflection."  "Ay,  there's  the  rub,"  is  a  vulgarism 
beneath  the  dignity  of  Hamlet's  character,  and  the  words  that 
follow  leave  the  sense  imperfect : 

"  For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come, 
When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil, 
Must  give  us  pause." 

Not  the  dreams  that  might  come,  but  the  fear  of  what  dreams 
might  come,  occasioned  the  pause  or  hesitation.  Respect  in  the 
same  line  may  be  allowed  to  pass  for  consideration  :  but 

"  The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely," 

according  to  the  invariable  acceptation  of  the  words  wrong  and 
contumely,  can  signify  nothing  but  the  wrongs  sustained  by  the 
oppressor,  and  the  contumely  or  abuse  thrown  upon  the  proud 
man ;  though  it  is  plain  that  Shakspeare  used  them  in  a  different 
sense  :  neither  is  the  word  spurn  a  substantive,  yet  as  such  he  has 
inserted  it  in  these  lines  : 

"  The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes." 

If  we  consider  the  metaphors  of  the  soliloquy,  we  shall  find  them 
jumbled  together  in  a  strange  confusion. 

7  The  conclusion  is  denied ;  i.e.  does  not  follow  from  the  premises. 


424  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

If  the  metaphors  were  reduced  to  painting,  we  should  find  it  a 
very  difficult  task,  if  not  altogether  impracticable,  to  represent, 
with  any  propriety,  outrageous  fortune  using  her  slings  and  arrows, 
between  which  indeed  there  is  no  sort  of  analogy  in  nature. 
Neither  can  any  figure  be  more  ridiculously  absurd  than  that  of  a 
man  taking  arms  against  the  sea,  exclusive  of  the  incongruous 
medley  of  slings,  arrows,  and  seas,  justled  within  the  compass  of 
one  reflection.  What  follows  is  a  strange  rhapsody  of  broken  im- 
ages of  sleeping,  dreaming,  and  shifting  off  a  coil,  which  last  con- 
veys no  idea  that  can  be  represented  on  canvas.  A  man  may  be 
exhibited  shuffling  off  his  garments  or  his  chains ;  but  how  he 
should  shuffle  off  a  coil,  which  is  another  term  for  noise  and  tu- 
mult, we  cannot  comprehend.  Then  we  have  "  long-lived  calam- 
ity," and  "time  armed  with  whips  and  scorn";  and  "patient 
merit  spurned  at  by  unworthiness,"  and  "  misery  with  a  bare  bod- 
kin going  to  make  his  own  quietus"  which  at  best  is  but  a  mean 
metaphor.  These  are  followed  by  figures  "  sweating  under  fardels 
of  burdens,"  "  puzzled  with  doubts,"  "  shaking  with  fears,"  and 
"  flying  from  evils."  Finally,  we  see  "  resolution  sicklied  o'er  with 
pale  thought,"  a  conception  like  that  of  representing  health  by 
sickness ;  and  a  "  current  of  pith  turned  awry  so  as  to  lose  the 
name  of  action,"  which  is  both  an  error  in  fancy,  and  a  solecism  in 
sense.  In  a  word,  this  soliloquy  may  be  compared  to  the  "sEgri 
somnia"  and  the  "Tabula,  cujus  vance  finguntur  species."  8 

But  while  we  censure  the  chaos  of  broken,  incongruous  met- 
aphors, we  ought  also  to  caution  the  young  poet  against  the  op- 
posite extreme,  of  pursuing  a  metaphor  until  the  spirit  is  quite 
exhausted  in  a  succession  of  cold  conceits  ;  such  as  we  see  in  the 
following  letter,  said  to  be  sent  by  Tamerlane  to  the  Turkish  Em- 
peror Bajazet.  "Where  is  the  monarch  that  dares  oppose  our 
arms?  Where  is  the  potentate  who  doth  not  glory  in  being  num- 
bered among  our  vassals?  As  for  thee,  descended  from  a  Tur- 

s  "...  a  sick  man's  dreams 

Varies  all  shapes  and  mixes  all  extremes"  — 

FRANCIS.  —  PRIOR'S  note. 


ESSA  VS.  425 

coman  mariner,  since  the  vessel  of  thy  unbounded  ambition  hath 
been  wrecked  in  the  gulf  of  thy  self-love,  it  would  be  proper  that 
thou  shouldest  furl  the  sails  of  thy  temerity,  and  cast  the  anchor  of 
repentance  in  the  port  of  sincerity  and  justice,  which  is  the  harbour 
of  safety ;  lest  the  tempest  of  our  vengeance  make  thee  perish 
in  the  sea  of  that  punishment  thou  hast  deserved." 

But  if  these  laboured  conceits  are  ridiculous  in  poetry,  they  are 
still  more  inexcusable  in  prose  :  such  as  we  find  them  frequently 
occur  in  Strada's  Bellum  Belgicum.  "  Vix  descenderat  a  prcetoria 
navi  Ccesar,  cum  fceda  ilico  exorta  in  portu  tempestas ;  classem 
impetu  disjecit,  prcetoriam  hausit ;  quasi  non  vecturam  amplius 
Ccesarem  Ccesarisque  fortunam."  "  Caesar  had  scarcely  set  his 
feet  on  shore,  when  a  terrible  tempest  arising,  shattered  the  fleet 
even  in  the  harbour,  and  sent  to  the  bottom  the  praetorian  ship,  as 
if  he  resolved  it  should  no  longer  carry  Caesar  and  his  fortunes." 

Yet  this  is  modest  in  comparison  of  the  following  flowers : 
"  Alii,  pulsis  e  tormento  catenis  discerpti  sectique,  dimidiato  cor- 
pore  pugnabant  sibi  superstites,  ac  peremptce  partis  ultores" 
"  Others,  dissevered  and  cut  in  twain  by  chain-shot,  fought  with 
one-half  of  their  bodies  that  remained,  in  revenge  of  the  other 
half  that  was  slain." 

Homer,  Horace,  and  even  the  chaste  Virgil,  is  not  free  from 
conceits.  The  latter,  speaking  of  a  man's  hand  cut  off  in  battle, 
says : 

"  Te  decisa  suum,  Laride,  dexter  a  quarit ; 
Semianimesqiie  nticant  digiti, ferrumqtu  retractant"1* 

thus  enduing  the  amputated  hand  with  sense  and  volition.  This, 
to  be  sure,  is  a  violent  figure,  and  hath  been  justly  condemned  by 
some  accurate  critics  ;  but  we  think  they  are  too  severe  in  extend- 
ing the  same  censure  to  some  other  passages  in  the  most  admired 
authors.  Virgil,  in  his  sixth  Eclogue,  says  : 

9  "  Thy  hand,  poor  Laris,  sought  its  absent  lord ; 
Thy  dying  fingers,  quivering  on  the  plain, 
With  starts  convulsive  grasp  the  steel  in  vain."  — 

DRYDEN.  —  PRIOR'S  note.     VIRGIL,  ALneid,  X.  395-6. 


426  OLIVER   GOLDSMITH. 

"  Omnia  qua,  Phcebo  quondam  meditante,  beatus 
Audiit  Eurotas,jussitque  ediscere  lauros, 
Ille  canit." 

"  Whate'er,  when  Phoebus  bless'd  the  Arcadian  plain, 
Eurotas  heard  and  taught  his  bays  the  strain, 
The  senior  sung  —  "  10 

And  Pope  has  copied  the  conceit  in  his  Pastorals  : 

"  Thames  heard  the  numbers  as  he  flow'd  along, 
And  bade  his  willows  learn  the  moving  song." 

Vida  thus  begins  his  first  Eclogue  : 

"  Dicite,  vos  musce,  etjuventtm  memorate  querelas  ; 
Dicite  :  nam  motas  ipsas  ad  carmina  cautes, 
Et  requi'esse  suos  perhibent  vaga  flumina  cursus." 

"  Say,  heavenly  muse,  their  youthful  frays  rehearse ; 
Begin,  ye  daughters  of  immortal  verse; 
Exulting  rocks  have  own'd  the  power  of  song, 
And  rivers  listen'd  as  they  flow'd  along." 

Racine  adopts  the  same  bold  figure  in  his  Phaedra  : 

"  Leflot  qui  Fapporta  recule  epouvante  :  " 
"  The  wave  that  bore  him  backwards  shrunk  appall'd." 

Even   Milton   has   indulged    himself   in   the   same   license   of 
expression  : 

"...  As  when  to  them  who  sail 
Beyond  the  Cape  of  Hope,  and  now  are  past 
Mozambic,  off  at  sea  north-east  winds  blow 
Sabaean  odor  from  the  spicy  shore 
Of  Araby  the  blest;   with  such  delay 
Well  pleas'd  they  slack  their  course,  and  many  a  league, 
Cheer'd  with  the  grateful  smell,  old  Ocean  smiles." 

Shakspeare  says : 

"...  I've  seen 

Th'  ambitious  ocean  swell,  and  rage,  and  foam, 
To  be  exalted  with  the  threat'ning  clouds."  u 

10  VIRGIL,  Eclogues,  VI.  82-84.  "  Julius  Casar,  I.  3,  6-8. 


ESSA  VS.  427 

And  indeed  more  correct  writers,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
abound  with  the  same  kind  of  figure,  which  is  reconciled  to  pro- 
priety, and  even  invested  with  beauty,  by  the  efficacy  of  the  proso- 
popoeia, which  personifies  the  object.  Thus  when  Virgil  says 
Enipeus  heard  the  songs  of  Apollo,  he  raises  up,  as  by  enchant- 
ment, the  idea  of  a  river  god  crowned  with  sedges,  his  head  raised 
above  the  stream,  and  in  his  countenance  the  expression  of  pleased 
attention.  By  the  same  magic  we  see,  in  the  couplet  quoted  from 
Pope's  Pastorals,  old  father  Thames  leaning  upon  his  arm,  and 
listening  to  the  poet's  strain. 

Thus,  in  the  regions  of  poetry  all  nature,  even  the  passions  and 
affections  of  the  mind,  may  be  personified  into  picturesque  figures 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  reader.  Ocean  smiles  or  frowns,  as 
the  sea  is  calm  or  tempestuous ;  a  Triton  rules  on  every  angry 
billow ;  every  mountain  has  its  Nymph,  every  stream  its  Naiad, 
every  tree  its  Hamadryad,  and  every  art  its  Genius.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  assent  to  those  who  censure  Thomson  as  licentious  for 
using  the  following  figure  : 

"  O  vale  of  bliss !     O  softly  swelling  hills ! 
On  which  the  power  of  cultivation  lies, 
And  joys  to  see  the  wonders  of  his  toil." 

We  cannot  conceive  a  more  beautiful  image  than  that  of  the 
genius  of  agriculture  distinguished  by  the  implements  of  his  art, 
imbrowned  with  labour,  glowing  with  health,  crowned  with  a  garland 
of  foliage,  flowers,  and  fruit,  lying  stretched  at  ease  on  the  brow  of 
a  gently-swelling  hill,  and  contemplating  with  pleasure  the  happy 
effects  of  his  own  industry. 

Neither  can  we  join  issue  against  Shakspeare  for  his  comparison, 
which  hath  likewise  incurred  the  censure  of  the  critics : 

"...  The  noble  sister  of  Poplicola, 
The  moon  of  Rome ;   chaste  as  the  icicle 
That's  curdled  [curdied]  by  the  frost  from  purest  snow, 
And  hangs  on  Dian's  temple."  12 

12  Coriolanus,  V.  3,  64-7. 


428  OLIVER   GOLDSMITH. 

This  is  no  more  than  illustrating  a  quality  of  the  mind,  by  com- 
paring it  with  a  sensible  object.  If  there  is  no  impropriety  in 
saying  such  a  man  is  true  as  steel,  firm  as  a  rock,  inflexible  as  an 
oak,  unsteady  as  the  ocean ;  or  in  describing  a  disposition  cold  as 
ice,  or  fickle  as  the  wind ;  and  these  expressions  are  justified  by 
constant  practice ;  we  shall  hazard  an  assertion,  that  the  compari- 
son of  a  chaste  woman  to  an  icicle  is  proper  and  picturesque,  as  it 
obtains  only  in  the  circumstances  of  cold  and  purity  :  but  that  the 
addition  of  its  being  curdled  from  the  purest  snow,  and  hanging 
on  the  temple  of  Diana,  the  patroness  of  virginity,  heightens  the 
whole  into  a  most  beautiful  simile,  that  gives  a  very  respectable 
and  amiable  idea  of  the  character  in  question. 

The  simile  is  no  more  than  an  extended  metaphor,  introduced 
to  illustrate  and  beautify  the  subject ;  it  ought  to  be  apt,  striking, 
properly  pursued,  and  adorned  with  all  the  graces  of  poetical 
melody. 

But  a  simile  of  this  kind  ought  never  to  proceed  from  the 
mouth  of  a  person  under  any  great  agitation  of  spirit ;  such  as  a 
tragic  character  overwhelmed  with  grief,  distracted  by  contending 
cares,  or  agonizing  in  the  pangs  of  death.  The  language  of  pas- 
sion will  not  admit  simile,  which  is  always  the  result  of  study  and 
deliberation.  We  will  not  allow  a  hero  the  privilege  of  a  dying 
swan,  which  is  said  to  chant  its  approaching  fate  in  the  most 
melodious  strain  :  and  therefore,  nothing  can  be  more  ridiculously 
unnatural,  than  the  representation  of  a  lover  dying  upon  the  stage 
with  a  laboured  simile  in  his  mouth. 

The  orientals,  whose  language  was  extremely  figurative,  have 
been  very  careless  in  the  choice  of  their  similes;  provided  the 
resemblance  obtained  in  one  circumstance,  they  minded  not 
whether  they  disagreed  with  the  subject  in  every  other  respect. 
Many  instances  of  this  defect  in  congruity  may  be  culled  from  the 
most  sublime  parts  of  Scripture. 

Homer  has  been  blamed  for  the  bad  choice  of  his  similes  on 
some  particular  occasions.  He  compares  Ajax  to  an  ass,  in  the 
Iliad,  and  Ulysses  to  a  steak  broiling  on  the  coals,  in  the  Odyssey. 


ESSA  VS.  429 

His  admirers  have  endeavoured  to  excuse  him,  by  reminding  us 
of  the  simplicity  of  the  age  in  which  he  wrote ;  but  they  have  not 
been  able  to  prove  that  any  ideas  of  dignity  or  importance  were, 
even  in  those  days,  affixed  to  the  character  of  an  ass,  or  the  qual- 
ity of  a  beef-collop ;  therefore,  they  were  very  improper  illustra- 
tions for  any  situation  in  which  a  hero  ought  to  be  represented. 

Virgil  has  degraded  the  wife  of  king  Latinus,  by  comparing  her, 
when  she  was  actuated  by  the  Fury,  to  a  top  which  the  boys  lash 
for  diversion.  This,  doubtless,  is  a  low  image,  though  in  other 
respects  the  comparison  is  not  destitute  of  propriety ;  but  he  is 
much  more  justly  censured  for  the  following  simile,  which  has  no 
sort  of  reference  to  the  subject.  Speaking  of  Turnus,  he  says  : 

"...  media  dux  agmine  Turnus 

Vertitur  arma  tenens,  et  toto  vertice  supra  est, 
Ceu  septem  surgens  sedatis  amnibus  altus 
Per  taciturn  Ganges:  aut pingui flumine  Nilus 
Cum  refluit  campis,  et  jam  se  condidit  alveo." 

"...  But  Turnus,  chief  amidst  the  warrior  train, 
In  armour  towers  the  tallest  on  the  plain, 
The  Ganges  thus  by  seven  rich  streams  supplied, 
A  mighty  mass  devolves  in  silent  pride  : 
Thus  Nilus  pours  forth  his  prolific  urn, 
When  from  the  fields  o'erflowed  his  vagrant  streams  return."  13 

These,  no  doubt,  are  majestic  images ;  but  they  bear  no  sort  of 
resemblance  to  a  hero  glittering  in  armour  at  the  head  of  his  forces. 

Horace  has  been  ridiculed  by  some  shrewd  critics  for  this  com- 
parison, which,  however,  we  think  is  more  defensible  than  the 
former.  Addressing  himself  to  Munatius  Plancus,  he  says  : 

"  Aldus  ut  obscuro  deterget  nubila  ccelo 

Scepe  Notus,  neque  parturit  imbres 
Perpetuos  ;  sic  tu  sapiens  finire  memento 

Tristitiam,  vittique  labores 
Molli,  Plance,  mero.  —  " 

13  VIRGIL,  ^Eneid,  IX.  28-32. 


430  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

"  As  Notus  often,  when  the  welkin  lowers, 
Sweeps  off  the  clouds,  nor  teems  perpetual  showers, 
So  let  thy  wisdom,  free  from  anxious  strife, 
In  mellow  wine  dissolve  the  cares  of  life."  —  DUNKIN.1* 

The  analogy,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  not  very  striking;  but 
nevertheless,  it  is  not  altogether  void  of  propriety.  The  poet 
reasons  thus  :  as  the  south  wind,  though  generally  attended  with 
rain,  is  often  known  to  dispel  the  clouds,  and  render  the  weather 
serene ;  so  do  you,  though  generally  on  the  rack  of  thought,  re- 
member to  relax  sometimes,  and  drown  your  cares  in  wine.  As 
the  south  wind  is  not  always  moist,  so  you  ought  not  always  to  be 
dry. 

A  few  instances  of  inaccuracy,  or  mediocrity,  can  never  dero- 
gate from  the  superlative  merit  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  whose  poems 
are  the  great  magazines,  replete  with  every  species  of  beauty  and 
magnificence,  particularly  abounding  with  similes,  which  astonish, 
delight,  and  transport  the  reader. 

Every  simile  ought  not  only  to  be  well  adapted  to  the  subject, 
but  also  to  include  every  excellence  of  description,  and  to  be  col- 
oured with  the  warmest  tints  of  poetry.  Nothing  can  be  more 
happily  hit  off  than  the  following  in  the  Georgics,  to  which  the 
poet  compares  Orpheus  lamenting  his  lost  Eurydice. 

"  Qualis  populed  maerens  Philomela  sub  umbra 
Amissos  queritur  foetus,  quos  durus  arator 
Observant  nido  implumes  detraxit ;  at  ilia 
Flelnoctem,  ramoque  sedens  miserabile  carmen 
Integral,  et  mcestis  late  loca  questibus  imflet." 

"  So  Philomela,  from  th'  umbrageous  wood, 
In  strains  melodious  mourns  her  tender  brood, 
Snatch'd  from  the  nest  by  some  rude  ploughman's  hand, 
On  some  lone  bough  the  warbler  takes  her  stand; 
The  live-long  night  she  mourns  the  cruel  wrong, 
And  hill  and  dale  resound  the  plaintive  song." 16 

14  HORACE,  Odes,  I.  7,  15-19.  15  VIRGIL,  Georgics,  IV.  511-15. 


ESSA  YS.  431 

Here  we  not  only  find  the  most  scrupulous  propriety,  and  the 
happiest  choice,  in  comparing  the  Thracian  bard  to  Philomel  the 
poet  of  the  grove  ;  but  also  the  most  beautiful  description,  con- 
taining a  fine  touch  of  the  pathos,  in  which  last  particular  indeed 
Virgil,  in  our  opinion,  excels  all  other  poets,  whether  ancient  or 
modern. 

One  would  imagine  that  nature  had  exhausted  itself,  in  order 
to  embellish  the  poems  of  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Milton,  with  similes 
and  metaphors.  The  first  of  these  very  often  uses  the  compari- 
son of  the  wind,  the  whirlwind,  the  hail,  the  torrent,  to  express  the 
rapidity  of  his  combatants  ;  but  when  he  comes  to  describe  the 
velocity  of  the  immortal  horses  that  drew  the  chariot  of  Juno,  he 
raises  his  ideas  to  the  subject,  and,  as  Longinus  observes,  measures 
every  leap  by  the  whole  breadth  of  the  horizon. 


"Oara'ov  8'  iyepociSts  avrjp  t8cv  6<f>6aXfJ.ol<Tiv, 
"H/xevos  ev  (TKOTTirj  Xivcrcrtov  CTTI  oivoira  TTOVTOV, 
Tooxrov  €7n$poi(rjcou(n  Qtwv  wi/K^ees  tinroi. 


"  For  as  a  watchman  from  some  rock  on  high 
O'er  the  wide  main  extends  his  boundless  eye; 
Through  such  a  space  of  air  with  thundering  sound 
At  every  leap  th'  immortal  coursers  bound."  16 

The  celerity  of  this  goddess  seems  to  be  a  favourite  idea  with 
the  poet  ;  for  in  another  place,  he  compares  it  to  the  thought  of 
a  traveller  revolving  in  his  mind  the  different  places  he  had  seen, 
and  passing  through  them  in  imagination  more  swift  than  the 
lightning  flies  from  east  to  west. 

Homer's  best  similes  have  been  copied  by  Virgil,  and  almost 
every  succeeding  poet,  however  they  may  have  varied  in  the 
manner  of  expression. 

In  the  third  book  of  the  Iliad,  Menelaus  seeing  Paris,  is  com- 
pared to  a  hungry  lion  espying  a  hind  or  goat. 

"(lore  AcW  f^apr),  /x.cyaAa>  CTTI  <rayiaTi  /a'prrus. 
Eupwv  rj  t\a<f>ov  Kfpaov,  rj  ayptov  atya,  etc. 

18  HOMER,  Iliad,  V.  770-72. 


432  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

"  So  joys  the  lion,  if  a  branching  deer 
Or  mountain  goat  his  bulky  prize  appear; 
In  vain  the  youths  oppose,  the  mastiffs  bay, 
The  lordly  savage  rends  the  panting  prey, 
Thus  fond  of  vengeance,  with  a  furious  bound 
In  clanging  arms  he  leaps  upon  the  ground."  17 

The  Mantuan  bard,  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Eneid,  applies  the 
same  simile  to  Mezentius,  when  he  beholds  Acron  in  the  battle. 

"  Impastus  stabuld  alto,  leo  ceu  stzpe  peragrans  ; 
{Suadet  enim  vesana  fames),  si  forte  fugacem 
Conspexit  capream,  aut  surgentem  in  cornua  cervum 
Gaudet,  Mans  immane,  comasque  arrexit,  et  haret 
Visceribus  super  accumbens  ;  lavit  improba  teler 
Ora  cruor" 

"  Then  as  a  hungry  lion,  who  beholds 
A  gamesome  goat  who  frisks  about  the  folds, 
Or  beamy  stag  that  grazes  on  the  plain; 
He  runs,  he  roars,  he  shakes  his  rising  mane : 
He  grins,  and  opens  wide  his  greedy  jaws, 
The  prey  lies  panting  underneath  his  paws; 
He  fills  his  famish'd  maw,  his  mouth  runs  o'er 
With  unchew'd  morsels,  while  he  churns  the  gore." 18  —  DRYDEN. 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  Virgil  has  improved  the  simile  in 
one  particular,  and  in  another  fallen  short  of  his  original.  The 
description  of  the  lion  shaking  his  mane,  opening  his  hideous 
jaws  distained  with  the  blood  of  his  prey,  is  great  and  pictur- 
esque ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  omitted  the  circumstance 
of  devouring  it  without  being  intimidated,  or  restrained  by  the 
dogs  and  the  youths  that  surround  him  ;  a  circumstance  that  adds 
greatly  to  our  ideas  of  his  strength,  intrepidity,  and  importance. 

17  HOMER,  Iliad,  III.  23  ff.  18  VIRGIL,  ^Eneid,  X .  723-28. 


XXI. 

SAMUEL    JOHNSON. 

(1709-1784.) 

PREFACE  TO  SHAKESPEARE. 

[Written  in  1765.] 

SHAKESPEARE  with  his  excellencies  has  likewise  faults,  and  faults 
sufficient  to  obscure  and  overwhelm  any  other  merit.  I  shall  show 
them  in  the  proportion  in  which  they  appear  to  me,  without 
envious  malignity  or  superstitious  veneration.  No  question  can 
be  more  innocently  discussed  than  a  dead  poet's  pretensions  to 
renown ;  and  little  regard  is  due  to  that  bigotry  which  sets  candour 
higher  than  truth. 

His  first  defect  is  that  to  which  may  be  imputed  most  of  the 
evil  in  books  or  in  men.  He  sacrifices  virtue  to  convenience,  and 
is  so  much  more  careful  to  please  than  to  instruct,  that  he  seems 
to  write  without  any  moral  purpose.  From  his  writings,  indeed,  a 
system  of  social  duty  may  be  selected,  for  he  that  thinks  reason- 
ably must  think  morally ;  but  his  precepts  and  axioms  drop  cas- 
ually from  him  ;  he  makes  no  just  distribution  of  good  or  evil,  nor 
is  always  careful  to  show  in  the  virtuour,  a  disapprobation  of  the 
wicked;  he  carries  his  persons  indifferently  through  right  and 
wrong,  and  at  the  close  dismisses  them  without  further  care,  and 
leaves  their  examples  to  operate  by  chance.  This  fault  the  bar- 
barity of  his  age  cannot  estimate  ;  for  it  is  always  a  writer's  duty 
to  make  the  world  better,  and  justice  is  a  virtue  independent  on 
time  or  place. 

The  plots  are  often  so  loosely  formed  that  a  very  slight  consid- 
eration may  improve  them,  and  so  carelessly  pursued  that  he 

433 


434  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

seems  not  always  fully  to  comprehend  his  own  design.  He  omits 
opportunities  of  instructing  or  delighting,  which  the  train  of  his 
story  seems  to  force  upon  him,  and  apparently  rejects  those  exhi- 
bitions which  would  be  more  affecting,  for  the  sake  of  those  which 
are  more  easy. 

It  may  be  observed  that  in  many  of  his  plays  the  latter  part  is 
evidently  neglected.  When  he  found  himself  near  the  end  of  his 
work,  and  in  view  of  his  reward,  he  shortened  the  labour  to  snatch 
the  profit.  He  therefore  remits  his  efforts  where  he  should  most 
vigorously  exert  them,  and  his  catastrophe  is  improbably  produced 
or  imperfectly  represented. 

He  had  no  regard  to  distinction  of  time  or  place,  but  gives  to 
one  age  or  nation,  without  scruple,  the  customs,  institutions,  and 
opinions  of  another,  at  the  expense  not  only  of  likelihood,  but  of 
possibility.  These  faults  Pope  has  endeavoured,  with  more  zeal 
than  judgment,  to  transfer  to  his  imagined  interpolators.  We 
need  not  wonder  to  find  Hector  quoting  Aristotle,  when  we  see 
the  loves  of  Theseus  and  Hippolyta  combined  with  the  gothick 
mythology  of  fairies.  Shakespeare,  indeed,  was  not  the  only  vio- 
lator of  chronology,  for  in  the  same  age  Sidney,  who  wanted  not 
the  advantages  of  learning,  has,  in  his  Arcadia,  confounded  the 
pastoral  with  the  feudal  times,  the  days  of  innocence,  quiet,  and 
security,  with  those  of  turbulence,  violence,  and  adventure. 

In  his  comick  scenes  he  is  seldom  very  successful  when  he 
engages  his  characters  in  reciprocations  of  smartness  and  contests 
of  sarcasm ;  their  jests  are  commonly  gross,  and  their  pleasantry 
licentious ;  neither  his  gentlemen  nor  his  ladies  have  much  deli- 
cacy, nor  are  sufficiently  distinguished  from  his  clowns  by  any 
appearance  of  refined  manners.  Whether  he  represented  the  real 
conversation  of  his  time  is  not  easy  to  determine  :  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  been  a  time  of  stateli- 
ness,  formality,  and  reserve ;  yet  perhaps  the  relaxations  of  that 
severity  were  not  very  elegant.  There  must,  however,  have  been 
always  some  modes  of  gayety  preferable  to  others,  and  a  writer 
ought  to  choose  the  best, 


PREFACE    TO  SHAKESPEARE.  435 

In  tragedy  his  performance  seems  constantly  to  be  worse,  as  his 
labour  is  more.  The  effusions  of  passion,  which  exigence  forces 
out,  are  for  the  most  part  striking  and  energetick ;  but  whenever 
he  solicits  his  invention,  or  strains  his  faculties,  the  offspring  of  his 
throes  is  tumour,  meanness,  tediousness,  and  obscurity. 

In  narration  he  affects  a  disproportionate  pomp  of  diction,  and 
a  wearisome  train  of  circumlocution,  and  tells  the  incident  imper- 
fectly in  many  words  which  might  have  been  more  plainly  deliv- 
ered in  few.  Narration  in  dramatick  poetry  is  naturally  tedious, 
as  it  is  unanimated  and  inactive,  and  obstructs  the  progress  of  the 
action ;  it  should  therefore  always  be  rapid,  and  enlivened  by 
frequent  interruption.  Shakespeare  found  it  an  incumbrance,  and 
instead  of  lightening  it  by  brevity,  endeavoured  to  recommend  it 
by  dignity  and  splendour. 

His  declamations  or  set  speeches  are  commonly  cold  and  weak, 
for  his  power  was  the  power  of  nature ;  when  he  endeavoured, 
like  other  tragick  writers,  to  catch  opportunities  of  amplification, 
and  instead  of  inquiring  what  the  occasion  demanded,  to  show 
how  much  his  stores  of  knowledge  could  supply,  he  seldom  es- 
capes without  the  pity  or  resentment  of  his  reader. 

It  is  incident  to  him  to  be  now  and  then  entangled  with  an 
unwieldy  sentiment,  which  he  cannot  well  express,  and  will  not 
reject ;  he  struggles  with  it  a  while,  and,  if  it  continues  stubborn, 
comprises  it  in  words  such  as  occur,  and  leaves  it  to  be  disen- 
tangled and  solved  bv  those  who  have  more  leisure  to  bestow 
upon  it. 

Not  that  always  where  the  language  is  intricate  the  thought  is 
subtle,  or  the  image  always  great  where  the  line  is  bulky;  the 
equality  of  words  to  things  is  very  often  neglected,  and  trivial  sen- 
timents and  vulgar  ideas  disappoint  the  attention,  to  which  they 
are  recommended  by  sonorous  epithets  and  swelling  figures. 

But  the  admirers  of  this  great  poet  have  most  reason  to  com- 
plain when  he  approaches  nearest  to  his  highest  excellence,  and 
seems  fully  resolved  to  sink  them  in  dejection,  and  mollify  them 
with  tender  emotions  by  the  fall  of  greatness,  the  danger  of  inno- 


436  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

cence,  or  the  crosses  of  love.  What  he  does  best,  he  soon  ceases 
to  do.  He  is  not  soft  and  pathetic  without  some  idle  conceit,  or 
contemptible  equivocation.  He  no  sooner  begins  to  move,  than 
he  counteracts  himself;  and  terrour  and  pity,  as  they  are  rising  in 
the  mind,  are  checked  and  blasted  by  sudden  frigidity.  A  quib- 
ble is  to  Shakespeare,  what  luminous  vapours  are  to  the  traveller : 
he  follows  it  at  all  adventures ;  it  is  sure  to  lead  him  out  of  his 
way,  and  sure  to  engulf  him  in  the  mire.  It  has  some  malignant 
power  over  his  mind,  and  its  fascinations  are  irresistible.  What- 
ever be  the  dignity  or  profundity  of  his  disposition,  whether  he  be 
enlarging  knowledge  or  exalting  affection,  whether  he  be  amusing 
attention  with  incidents,  or  enchaining  it  in  suspense,  let  but  a 
quibble  spring  up  before  him,  and  he  leaves  his  work  unfinished. 
A  quibble  is  the  golden  apple  for  which  he  will  always  turn  aside 
from  his  career,  or  stoop  from  his  elevation.  A  quibble,  poor  and 
barren  as  it  is,  gave  him  such  delight,  that  he  was  content  to  pur- 
chase it,  by  the  sacrifice  of  reason,  propriety,  and  truth.  A  quibble 
was  to  him  the  fatal  Cleopatra  for  which  he  lost  the  world,  and  was 
content  to  lose  it. 

It  will  be  thought  strange  that,  in  enumerating  the  defects  of 
this  writer,  I  have  not  yet  mentioned  his  neglect  of  the  unities ; 
his  violation  of  those  laws  which  have  been  instituted  and  estab- 
lished by  the  joint  authority  of  poets  and  criticks. 

For  his  other  deviations  from  the  art  of  writing,  I  resign  him  to 
critical  justice,  without  making  any  other  demand  in  his  favour, 
than  that  which  must  be  indulged  to  all  human  excellence  :  that  his 
virtues  be  rated  with  his  failings :  but  from  the  censure  which  this 
irregularity  may  bring  upon  him,  I  shall,  with  due  reverence  to  that 
learning  which  I  must  oppose,  adventure  to  try  how  I  can  defend  him. 

His  histories,  being  neither  tragedies  nor  comedies,  are  not 
subject  to  any  of  their  laws ;  nothing  more  is  necessary  to  all  the 
praise  which  they  expect,  than  that  the  changes  of  action  be  so 
prepared  as  to  be  understood ;  that  the  incidents  be  various  and 
affecting,  and  the  characters  consistent,  natural,  and  distinct.  No 
other  unity  is  intended,  and  therefore  none  is  to  be  sought. 


PREFACE    TO   SHAKESPEARE.  437 

In  his  other  works  he  has  well  enough  preserved  the  unity  of 
action.  He  has  not,  indeed,  an  intrigue  regularly  perplexed  and 
regularly  unravelled  :  he  does  not  endeavour  to  hide  his  design 
only  to  discover  it,  for  this  is  seldom  the  order  of  real  events,  and 
Shakespeare  is  the  poet  of  nature  :  but  his  plan  has  commonly, 
what  Aristotle  requires,  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end ;  one 
event  is  concatenated  with  another,  and  the  conclusion  follows  by 
easy  consequence.  There  are  perhaps  some  incidents  that  might  be 
spared,  as  in  other  poets  there  is  much  talk  that  only  fills  up  time 
upon  the  stage ;  but  the  general  system  makes  gradual  advances, 
and  the  end  of  the  play  is  the  end  of  expectation. 

To  the  unities  of  time  and  place  he  has  shown  no  regard ;  and 
perhaps  a  nearer  view  of  the  principles  on  which  they  stand  will 
diminish  their  value,  and  withdraw  from  them  the  veneration 
which,  from  the  time  of  Corneille,  they  have  very  generally 
received,  by  discovering  that  they  have  given  more  trouble  to  the 
poet  than  pleasure  to  the  auditor. 

The  necessity  of  observing  the  unities  of  time  and  place  arises 
from  the  supposed  necessity  of  making  the  drama  credible.  The 
criticks  hold  it  impossible  that  an  action  of  months  or  years  can 
be  possibly  believed  to  pass  in  three  hours  ;  or  that  the  spectator 
can  suppose  himself  to  sit  in  the  theatre,  while  ambassadors  go  and 
return  between  distant  kings,  while  armies  are  levied  and  towns 
besieged,  while  an  exile  wanders,  and  returns,  or  till  he  whom 
they  saw  courting  his  mistress  shall  lament  the  untimely  fall  of  his 
son.  The  mind  revolts  from  evident  falsehood,  and  fiction  loses 
its  force  when  it  departs  from  the  resemblance  of  reality. 

From  the  narrow  limitation  of  time  necessarily  arises  the  con- 
traction of  place.  The  spectator,  who  knows  that  he  saw  the  first 
act  at  Alexandria,  cannot  suppose  that  he  sees  the  next  at  Rome, 
at  a  distance  to  which  not  the  dragons  of  Medea  could,  in  so 
short  a  time,  have  transported  him ;  he  knows  with  certainty  that 
he  has  not  changed  his  place,  and  he  knows  that  place  cannot 
change  itself ;  that  what  was  a  house  cannot  become  a  plain ; 
that  what  was  Thebes  can  never  be  Persepolis. 


438  SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

Such  is  the  triumphant  language  with  which  a  critick  exults  over 
the  misery  of  an  irregular  poet,  and  exults  commonly  without 
resistance  or  reply.  It  is  time,  therefore,  to  tell  him  by  the 
authority  of  Shakespeare,  that  he  assumes,  as  an  unquestionable 
principle,  a  position,  which,  while  his  breath  is  forming  it  into 
words,  his  understanding  pronounces  to  be  false.  It  is  false,  that 
any  representation  is  mistaken  for  reality ;  that  any  dramatick 
fable  in  its  materiality  was  ever  credible,  or,  for  a  single  moment, 
was  ever  credited. 

The  objection  arising  from  the  impossibility  of  passing  the  first 
hour  at  Alexandria,  and  the  next  at  Rome,  supposes  that  when 
the  play  opens,  the  spectator  really  imagines  himself  at  Alexan- 
dria, and  believes  that  his  walk  to  the  theatre  has  been  a  voyage 
to  Egypt,  and  that  he  lives  in  the  days  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
Surely  he  that  imagines  this  may  imagine  more.  He  that  can 
take  the  stage  at  one  time  for  the  palace  of  the  Ptolemies,  may 
take  it  in  half  an  hour  for  the  promontory  of  Actium.  Delusion, 
if  delusion  be  admitted,  has  no  certain  limitation  ;  if  the  spectator 
can  be  once  persuaded,  that  his  old  acquaintance  are  Alexander 
and  Caesar,  that  a  room  illuminated  with  candles  is  the  plain  of 
Pharsalia,  or  the  bank  of  Granicus,  he  is  in  a  state  of  elevation 
above  the  reach  of  reason,  or  of  truth,  and  from  the  heights  of 
empyrean  poetry,  may  despise  the  circumscriptions  of  terrestrial 
nature. 

There  is  no  reason  why  a  mind  thus  wandering  in  ecstacy 
should  count  the  clock,  or  why  an  hour  should  not  be  a  century 
in  that  calenture  of  the  brain  that  can  make  the  stage  a  field. 

The  truth  is  that  the  spectators  are  always  in  their  senses,  and 
know,  from  the  first  act  to  the  last,  that  the  stage  is  only  a  stage, 
and  that  the  players  are  only  players.  They  came  to  hear  a  certain 
number  of  lines  recited  with  just  gesture  and  elegant  modulation. 
The  lines  relate  to  some  action,  and  an  action  must  be  in  some 
place ;  but  the  different  actions  that  complete  a  story  may  be  in 
places  very  remote  from  each  other ;  and  where  is  the  absurdity 
of  allowing  that  space  to  represent  first  Athens,  and  then  Sicily, 


PREFACE    TO  SHAKESPEARE.  439 

which  was  always  known  to  be  neither  Sicily  nor  Athens,  but  a 
modern  theatre? 

By  supposition,  as  place  is  introduced,  time  may  be  extended ; 
the  time  required  by  the  fable  elapses  for  the  most  part  between 
the  acts ;  for,  of  so  much  of  the  action  as  is  represented,  the  real 
and  poetical  duration  is  the  same.  If,  in  the  first  act,  preparations 
for  war  against  Mithridates  are  represented  to  be  made  in  Rome, 
the  event  of  the  war  may,  without  absurdity,  be  represented,  in 
the  catastrophe,  as  happening  in  Pontus ;  we  know  that  there  is 
neither  war,  nor  preparation  for  war ;  we  know  that  we  are  neither 
in  Rome  nor  Pontus ;  that  neither  Mithridates  nor  Lucullus  are 
before  us.  The  drama  exhibits  successive  imitations  of  successive 
actions ;  and  why  may  not  the  second  imitation  represent  an  ac- 
tion that  happened  years  after  the  first,  if  it  be  so  connected  with 
it  that  nothing  but  time  can  be  supposed  to  intervene  ?  Time  is, 
of  all  modes  of  existence,  most  obsequious  to  the  imagination ;  a 
lapse  of  years  is  as  easily  conceived  as  a  passage  of  hours.  In 
contemplation  we  easily  contract  the  time  of  real  actions,  and 
therefore  willingly  permit  it  to  be  contracted  when  we  only  see 
their  imitation. 

It  will  be  asked,  how  the  drama  moves,  if  it  is  not  credited. 
It  is  credited  with  all  the  credit  due  to  a  drama.  It  is  credited, 
whenever  it  moves,  as  a  just  picture  of  a  real  original ;  as  repre- 
senting to  the  auditor  what  he  would  himself  feel,  if  he  were 
to  do  or  suffer  what  is  there  feigned  to  be  suffered  or  to  be 
done.  The  reflection  that  strikes  the  heart  is  not  that  the  evils 
before  us  are  real  evils,  but  that  they  are  evils  to  which  we  our- 
selves may  be  exposed.  If  there  be  any  fallacy,  it  is  not  that 
we  fancy  the  players,  but  that  we  fancy  ourselves  unhappy  for  a 
moment ;  but  we  rather  lament  the  possibility  than  suppose  the 
presence  of  misery,  as  a  mother  weeps  over  her  babe,  when  she 
remembers  that  death  may  take  it  from  her.  The  delight  of 
tragedy  proceeds  from  our  consciousness  of  fiction ;  if  we  thought 
murders  and  treasons  real,  they  would  please  no  more. 

Imitations  produce  pain  or  pleasure,  not  because  they  are  mis- 


440  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

taken  for  realities,  but  because  they  bring  realities  to  mind.  When 
the  imagination  is  recreated  by  a  painted  landscape,  the  trees  are 
not  supposed  capable  to  give  us  shade,  or  the  fountains  coolness ; 
but  we  consider  how  we  should  be  pleased  with  such  fountains 
playing  beside  us,  and  such  woods  waving  over  us.  We  are 
agitated  in  reading  the  history  of  Henry  the  Fifth,  yet  no  man 
takes  his  book  for  the  field  of  Agincourt.  A  dramatick  exhibi- 
tion is  a  book  recited  with  concomitants  that  increase  or  diminish 
its  effect.  Familiar  comedy  is  often  more  powerful  on  the  theatre 
than  in  the  page  ;  imperial  tragedy  is  always  less.  The  humour  of 
Petruchio  may  be  heightened  by  grimace  ;  but  what  voice  or  what 
gesture  can  hope  to  add  dignity  or  force  to  the  soliloquy  of  Cato? 

A  play  read  affects  the  mind  like  a  play  acted.  It  is  therefore 
evident  that  the  action  is  not  supposed  to  be  real ;  and  it  follows 
that  between  the  acts  a  longer  or  shorter  time  may  be  allowed  to 
pass,  and  that  no  more  account  of  space  or  duration  is  to  be  taken 
by  the  auditor  of  a  drama,  than  by  the  reader  of  a  narrative,  be- 
fore whom  may  pass  in  an  hour  the  life  of  a  hero,  or  the  revolu- 
tions of  an  empire. 

Whether  Shakespeare  knew  the  unities,  and  rejected  them  by 
design,  or  deviated  from  them  by  happy  ignorance,  it  is,  I  think, 
impossible  to  decide  and  useless  to  inquire.  We  may  reasonably 
suppose  that,  when  he  rose  to  notice,  he  did  not  want  the  coun- 
sels and  admonitions  of  scholars  and  criticks,  and  that  he  at  last 
deliberately  persisted  in  a  practice,  which  he  might  have  begun  by 
chance.  As  nothing  is  essential  to  the  fable  but  unity  of  action, 
and  as  the  unities  of  time  and  place  arise  evidently  from  false 
assumptions,  and,  by  circumscribing  the  extent  of  the  drama, 
lessen  its  variety,  I  cannot  think  it  much  to  be  lamented  that 
they  were  not  known  by  him,  or  not  observed :  nor,  if  such 
another  poet  could  arise,  should  I  very  vehemently  reproach  him 
that  his  first  act  passed  at  Venice,  and  his  next  in  Cyprus.  Such 
violations  of  rules  merely  positive  become  the  comprehensive 
genius  of  Shakespeare,  and  such  censures  are  suitable  to  the  mi- 
nute and  slender  criticism  of  Voltaire. 


PREFACE    TO   SHAKESPEARE.  441 

"  Non  usque  adeo  permiscuit  imis 
Longus  summa  dies,  ut  non,  si  voce  Metelli 
Serventur  leges,  malint  a  C&sare  tolli."  1  » 

Yet  when  I  speak  thus  slightly  of  dramatick  rules,  I  cannot  but 
recollect  how  much  wit  and  learning  may  be  produced  against  me ; 
before  such  authorities  I  am  afraid  to  stand,  not  that  I  think  the 
present  question  one  of  those  that  are  to  be  decided  by  mere 
authority,  but  because  it  is  to  be  suspected  that  these  precepts 
have  not  been  so  easily  received,  but  for  better  reasons  than  I 
have  yet  been  able  to  find. 

The  result  of  my  inquiries,  in  which  it  would  be  ludicrous  to 
boast  of  impartiality,  is,  that  the  unities  of  time  and  place  are  not 
essential  to  a  just  drama,  that  though  they  may  sometimes  con- 
duce to  pleasure,  they  are  always  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  noble 
beauties  of  variety  and  instruction ;  and  that  a  play  written  with 
nice  observation  of  critical  rules,  is  to  be  contemplated  as  an 
elaborate  curiosity,  as  the  product  of  superfluous  and  ostenta- 
tious art,  by  which  is  shown,  rather  what  is  possible,  than  what  is 
necessary. 

He  that,  without  diminution  of  any  other  excellence,  shall  pre- 
serve all  the  unities  unbroken,  deserves  the  like  applause  with  the 
architect,  who  shall  display  all  the  orders  of  architecture  in  a 
citadel,  without  any  deduction  from  its  strength  :  but  the  princi- 
pal beauty  of  a  citadel  is  to  exclude  the  enemy ;  and  the  greatest 
graces  of  a  play  are  to  copy  nature,  and  instruct  life.  Perhaps, 
what  I  have  here  not  dogmatically  but  deliberately  written,  may 
recall  the  principles  of  the  drama  to  a  new  examination.  I  am 
almost  frightened  at  my  own  temerity ;  and  when  I  estimate  the 
fame  and  the  strength  of  those  that  maintain  the  contrary  opinion, 
am  ready  to  sink  down  in  reverential  silence ;  as  JSneas  withdrew 
from  the  defence  of  Troy,  when  he  saw  Neptune  shaking  the  wall, 
and  Juno  heading  the  besiegers. 

1  Time  has  not  so  far  confused  the  highest  with  the  lowest,  that,  if  laws  may 
be  observed  by  tlie  command  of  Metellus,  they  may  not  prefer  to  be  annulled  by 
Caesar. 


442  SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

Those  whom  my  arguments  cannot  persuade  to  give  their 
approbation  to  the  judgment  of  Shakespeare,  will  easily,  if  they 
consider  the  condition  of  his  life,  make  some  allowance  for  his 
ignorance. 

Every  man's  performances,  to  be  rightly  estimated,  must  be 
compared  with  the  state  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  with 
his  own  particular  opportunities  ;  and  though  to  the  reader  a  book 
be  not  worse  or  better  for  the  circumstances  of  the  author,  yet  as 
there  is  always  a  silent  reference  of  human  works  to  human  abili- 
ties, and  as  the  inquiry,  how  far  man  may  extend  his  designs,  or 
how  high  he  may  rate  his  native  force,  is  of  far  greater  dignity 
than  in  what  rank  we  shall  place  any  particular  performance, 
curiosity  is  always  busy  to  discover  the  instruments,  as  well  as  to 
survey  the  workmanship,  to  know  how  much  is  to  be  ascribed  to 
original  powers,  and  how  much  to  casual  and  adventitious  help. 
The  palaces  of  Peru  or  Mexico  were  certainly  mean  and  incom- 
modious habitations,  if  compared  to  the  houses  of  European 
monarchs  ;  yet  who  could  forbear  to  view  them  with  astonishment, 
who  remembered  that  they  were  built  without  the  use  of  iron  ? 

The  English  nation,  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  was  yet  strug- 
gling to  emerge  from  barbarity.  The  philology  of  Italy  had  been 
transplanted  hither  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth ;  and  the 
learned  languages  had  been  successfully  cultivated  by  Lilly,  Lina- 
cre,  and  More ;  by  Pole,  Cheke,  and  Gardiner ;  and  afterwards 
by  Smith,  Clerk,  Haddon,  and  Ascham.  Greek  was  now  taught 
to  boys  in  the  principal  schools ;  and  those  who  united  elegance 
with  learning,  read,  with  great  diligence,  the  Italian  and  Spanish 
poets.  But  literature  was  yet  confined  to  professed  scholars,  or 
to  men  and  women  of  high  rank.  The  publick  was  gross  and 
dark ;  and  to  be  able  to  read  and  write  was  an  accomplishment 
still  valued  for  its  rarity. 

Nations,  like  individuals,  have  their  infancy.  A  people  newly 
awakened  to  literary  curiosity,  being  yet  unacquainted  with  the 
true  state  of  things,  knows  not  how  to  judge  of  that  which  is  pro- 
posed as  its  resemblance.  Whatever  is  remote  from  common 


PREFACE    TO   SHAKESPEARE.  443 

appearances  is  always  welcome  to  vulgar,  as  to  childish  credulity ; 
and  of  a  country  unenlightened  by  learning,  the  whole  people  is 
the  vulgar.  The  study  of  those  who  then  aspired  to  plebeian  learn- 
ing was  laid  out  upon  adventures,  giants,  dragons,  and  enchant- 
ments. The  Death  of  Arthur  was  the  favourite  volume. 

The  mind,  which  has  feasted  on  the  luxurious  wonders  of  fiction, 
has  no  taste  of  the  insipidity  of  truth.  A  play  which  imitated  only 
the  common  occurrences  of  the  world,  would,  upon  the  admirers 
of  Palmerin  and  Guy  of  Warwick,  have  made  little  impression ; 
he  that  wrote  for  such  an  audience  was  under  the  necessity  of 
looking  round  'for  strange  events  and  fabulous  transactions ;  and 
that  incredibility,  by  which  maturer  knowledge  is  offended,  was 
the  chief  recommendation  of  writings  to  unskilful  curiosity. 

Our  author's  plots  are  generally  borrowed  from  novels ;  and  it 
is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  chose  the  most  popular,  such  as 
were  read  by  many,  and  related  by  more ;  for  his  audience  could 
not  have  followed  him  through  the  intricacies  of  the  drama,  had 
they  not  held  the  thread  of  the  story  in  their  hands. 

The  stories,  which  we  now  find  only  in  remoter  authors,  were  in 
his  time  accessible  and  familiar.  The  fable  of  As  you  like  it, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  copied  from  Chaucer's  Gamefyn,2  was  a 
little  pamphlet  of  those  times ;  and  old  Mr.  Gibber  remembered 
the  tale  of  Hamlet  in  plain  English  prose,  which  the  criticks  have 
now  to  seek  in  Saxo  Grammaticus.  His  English  histories  he  took 
from  English  chronicles  and  English  ballads ;  and  as  the  ancient 
writers  were  made  known  to  his  countrymen  by  version,  they  sup- 
plied him  with  new  objects ;  he  dilated  some  of  Plutarch's  Lives 
into  plays,  when  they  had  been  translated  by  North. 

His  plots,  whether  historical  or  fabulous,  are  always  crowded 
with  incidents,  by  which  the  attention  of  a  rude  people  was  more 
easily  caught  than  by  sentiment  or  argumentation;  and  such  is 

2  It  is  copied  from  Lodge's  Rosalynd,  first  published  in  1590,  second  edition 
1592,  from  which  Rosalynd  is  reprinted  in  Collier's  Shakespeare's  Library, 
Vol.  II.  Moreover,  The  Tale  of  Gamely n  is  not  Chaucer's.  See  Skeat's 
edition  of  The  Tale  of  Gamelyn,  and  Furness's  As  You  Like  It,  Appendix. 


444  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

the  power  of  the  marvellous,  even  over  those  who  despise  it,  that 
every  man  finds  his  mind  more  strongly  seized  by  the  tragedies  of 
Shakespeare  than  of  any  other  writer ;  others  please  us  by  particu- 
lar speeches ;  but  he  always  makes  us  anxious  for  the  event,  and 
has  perhaps  excelled  all  but  Homer  in  securing  the  first  purpose 
of  a  writer,  by  exciting  restless  and  unquenchable  curiosity,  and 
compelling  him  that  reads  his  work  to  read  it  through. 

The  shows  and  bustle  with  which  his  plays  abound  have  the 
same  original.  As  knowledge  advances,  pleasure  passes  from  the 
eye  to  the  ear,  but  returns,  as  it  declines,  from  the  ear  to  the  eye. 
Those  to  whom  our  author's  labours  were  exhibited  had  more 
skill  in  pomps  or  processions  than  in  poetical  language,  and  per- 
haps wanted  some  visible  and  discriminating  events,  as  comments 
on  the  dialogue.  He  knew  how  he  should  most  please ;  and 
whether  his  practice  is  more  agreeable  to  nature,  or  whether  his 
example  has  prejudiced  the  nation,  we  still  find  that  on  our  stage 
something  must  be  done  as  well  as  said,  and  inactive  declamation 
is  very  coldly  heard,  however  musical  or  elegant,  passionate  or 
sublime. 

Voltaire  expresses  his  wonder  that  our  author's  extravagances 
are  endured  by  a  nation  which  has  seen  the  tragedy  of  Cato. 
Let  him  be  answered  that  Addison  speaks  the  language  of  poets ; 
and  Shakespeare,  of  men.  We  find  in  Cato  innumerable  beauties 
which  enamour  us  of  its  author,  but  we  see  nothing  that  acquaints 
us  with  human  sentiments  or  human  actions ;  we  place  it  with  the 
fairest  and  the  noblest  progeny  which  judgment  propagates  by 
conjunction  with  learning ;  but  Othello  is  the  vigorous  and  viva- 
cious offspring  of  observation  impregnated  by  genius.  Cato  af- 
fords a  splendid  exhibition  of  artificial  and  fictitious  manners,  and 
delivers  just  and  noble  sentiments,  in  diction  easy,  elevated,  and 
harmonious,  but  its  hopes  and  fears  communicate  no  vibration  to 
the  heart ;  the  composition  refers  us  only  to  the  writer ;  we  pro- 
nounce the  name  of  Cato,  but  we  think  on  Addison. 

The  work  of  a  correct  and  regular  writer  is  a  garden  accurately 
formed  and  diligently  planted,  varied  with  shades,  and  scented 


PREFACE    TO  SHAKESPEARE.  445 

with  flowers ;  the  composition  of  Shakespeare  is  a  forest,  in  which 
oaks  extend  their  branches,  and  pines  tower  in  the  air,  interspersed 
sometimes  with  weeds  and  brambles,  and  sometimes  giving  shelter 
to  myrtles  and  to  roses  ;  filling  the  eye  with  awful  pomp,  and  grati- 
fying the  mind  with  endless  diversity.  Other  poets  display  cab- 
inets of  precious  rarities,  minutely  finished,  wrought  into  shape, 
and  polished  into  brightness.  Shakespeare  opens  a  mine  which 
contains  gold  and  diamonds  in  unexhaustible  plenty,  though 
clouded  by  incrustations,  debased  by  impurities,  and  mingled  with 
a  mass  of  meaner  materials. 

It  has  been  much  disputed,  whether  Shakespeare  owed  his  ex- 
cellence to  his  own  native  force,  or  whether  he  had  the  common 
helps  of  scholastick  education,  the  precepts  of  critical  science, 
and  the  examples  of  ancient  authors. 

There  has  always  prevailed  a  tradition,  that  Shakespeare  wanted 
learning,  that  he  had  no  regular  education,  nor  much  skill  in  the 
dead  languages.  Jonson,  his  friend,  affirms,  that  he  had  small 
Latin,  and  less  Greek;  who,  besides  that  he  had  no  imaginable 
temptation  to  falsehood,  wrote  at  a  time  when  the  character  and 
acquisitions  of  Shakespeare  were  known  to  multitudes.  His  evi- 
dence ought  therefore  to  decide  the  controversy,  unless  some  tes- 
timony of  equal  force  could  be  opposed. 

Some  have  imagined  that  they  have  discovered  deep  learning 
in  many  imitations  of  old  writers ;  but  the  examples  which  I  have 
known  urged  were  drawn  from  books  translated  in  his  time ;  or 
were  such  easy  coincidences  of  thought  as  will  happen  to  all  who 
consider  the  same  subjects ;  or  such  remarks  on  life  or  axioms  of 
morality  as  float  in  conversation,  and  are  transmitted  through  the 
world  in  proverbial  sentences. 

I  have  found  it  remarked,  that,  in  this  important  sentence,  "  Go 
before,  I'll  follow,"  we  read  a  translation  of  /  prcz,  sequar?  I 
have  been  told,  that  when  Caliban,  after  a  pleasing  dream,  says, 
"  I  cry'd  to  sleep  again,"  the  author  imitates  Anacreon,  who  had, 
like  every  other  man,  the  same  wish  on  the  same  occasion. 

3  TERENCE,  Andria,  I.,  i,  144. 


446  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

There  are  a  few  passages  which  may  pass  for  imitations,  but  so 
few  that  the  exception  only  confirms  the  rule  ;  he  obtained  them 
from  accidental  quotations,  or  by  oral  communication,  and  as  he 
used  what  he  had,  would  have  used  more  if  he  had  obtained  it. 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  is  confessedly  taken  from  the  Mencechmi 
of  Plautus,  from  the  only  play  of  Plautus  which  was  then  in 
English.  What  can  be  more  probable  than  that  he  who  copied 
that  would  have  copied  more  ;  but  that  those  which  were  not 
translated  were  inaccessible  ? 

Whether  he  knew  the  modern  languages  is  uncertain.  That 
his  plays  have  some  French  scenes  proves  but  little ;  he  might 
easily  procure  them  to  be  written,  and  probably,  even  though  he 
had  known  the  language  in  the  common  degree,  he  could  not 
have  written  it  without  assistance.  In  the  story  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  he  is  observed  to  have  followed  the  English  translation 
where  it  deviates  from  the  Italian ;  but  this  on  the  other  part 
proves  nothing  against  his  knowledge  of  the  original.  He  was  to 
copy,  not  what  he  knew  himself,  but  what  was  known  to  his 
audience. 

It  is  most  likely  that  he  had  learned  Latin  sufficiently  to  make 
him  acquainted  with  construction,  but  that  he  never  advanced  to 
an  easy  perusal  of  the  Roman  authors.  Concerning  his  skill  in 
modern  languages,  I  can  find  no  sufficient  ground  of  determina- 
tion ;  but  as  no  imitations  of  French  or  Italian  authors  have  been 
discovered,  though  the  Italian  poetry  was  then  high  in  esteem,  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  he  read  little  more  than  English,  and 
chose  for  his  fables  only  such  tales  as  he  found  translated. 

That  much  knowledge  is  scattered  over  his  works  is  very  justly 
observed  by  Pope ;  but  it  is  often  such  knowledge  as  books  did 
not  supply.  He  that  will  understand  Shakespeare,  must  not  be 
content  to  study  him  in  the  closet ;  he  must  look  for  his  meaning 
sometimes  among  the  sports  of  the  field,  and  sometimes  among 
the  manufactures  of  the  shop. 

There  is,  however,  proof  enough  that  he  was  a  very  diligent 
reader,  nor  was  our  language  then  so  indigent  of  books,  but  that 


PREFACE    TO  SHAKESPEARE.  447 

he  might  very  liberally  indulge  his  curiosity  without  excursion  into 
foreign  literature.  Many  of  the  Roman  authors  were  translated, 
and  some  of  the  Greek ;  the  Reformation  had  filled  the  kingdom 
with  theological  learning ;  most  of  the  topicks  of  human  disqui- 
sition had  found  English  writers  ;  and  poetry  had  been  cultivated, 
not  only  with  diligence,  but  success.  This  was  a  stock  of  knowl- 
edge sufficient  for  a  mind  so  capable  of  appropriating  and  im- 
proving it. 

But  the  greater  part  of  his  excellence  was  the  product  of  his 
own  genius.  He  found  the  English  stage  in  a  state  of  the  utmost 
rudeness ;  no  essays  either  in  tragedy  or  comedy  had  appeared 
from  which  it  could  be  discovered  to  what  degree  of  delight 
either  one  or  other  might  be  carried.  Neither  character  nor 
dialogue  were  yet  understood.  Shakespeare  may  be  truly  said  to 
have  introduced  them  both  amongst  us,  and  in  some  of  his 
happier  scenes  to  have  carried  them  both  to  the  utmost  height. 

By  what  gradations  of  improvement  he  proceeded,  is  not  easily 
known ;  for  the  chronology  of  his  works  is  yet  unsettled.  Rowe 
is  of  opinion  that  "  perhaps  we  are  not  to  look  for  his  beginning, 
like  those  of  other  writers,  in  his  least  perfect  works ;  art  had  so 
little,  and  nature  so  large  a  share  in  what  he  did  that  for  aught  I 
know,"  says  he,  "  the  performances  of  his  youth,  as  they  were  the 
most  vigorous,  were  the  best." 

But  the  power  of  nature  is  only  the  power  of  using  to  any  cer- 
tain purpose  the  materials  which  diligence  procures,  or  oppor- 
tunity supplies.  Nature  gives  no  man  knowledge,  and,  when 
images  are  collected  by  study  and  experience,  can  only  assist  in 
combining  or  applying  them.  Shakespeare,  however  favoured  by 
nature,  could  impart  only  what  he  had  learned ;  and  as  he  must 
increase  his  ideas,  like  other  mortals,  by  gradual  acquisition,  he, 
like  them,  grew  wiser  as  he  grew  older,  could  display  life  better, 
as  he  knew  it  more,  and  instruct  with  more  efficacy,  as  he  was 
himself  more  amply  instructed. 

There  is  a  vigilance  of  observation  and  accuracy  of  distinction 
which  books  and  precepts  cannot  confer;  from  this  almost  all 


448  SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

original  and  native  excellence  proceeds.  Shakespeare  must  have 
looked  upon  mankind  with  perspicacity,  in  the  highest  degree 
curious  and  attentive.  Other  writers  borrow  their  characters  from 
preceding  writers,  and  diversify  them  only  by  the  accidental 
appendages  of  present  manners ;  the  dress  is  a  little  varied,  but 
the  body  is  the  same.  Our  author  had  both  matter  and  form  to 
provide  ;  for,  except  the  characters  of  Chaucer,  to  whom  I  think 
he  is  not  much  indebted,  there  were  no  writers  in  English,  and 
perhaps  not  many  in  other  modern  languages,  which  showed  life 
in  its  native  colours. 

The  contest  about  the  original  benevolence  or  malignity  of  man 
had  not  yet  commenced.  Speculation  had  not  yet  attempted  to 
analyse  the  mind,  to  trace  the  passions  to  their  sources,  to  unfold 
the  seminal  principles  of  vice  and  virtue,  or  sound  the  depths  of 
the  heart  for  the  motives  of  action.  All  those  enquiries,  which 
from  that  time  that  human  nature  became  the  fashionable  study, 
have  been  made  sometimes  with  nice  discernment,  but  often  with 
idle  subtility,  were  yet  unattempted.  The  tales  with  which  the 
infancy  of  learning  was  satisfied,  exhibited  only  the  superficial 
appearances  of  action,  related  the  events,  but  omitted  the  causes, 
and  were  formed  for  such  as  delighted  in  wonders  rather  than  in 
truth.  Mankind  was  not  then  to  be  studied  in  the  closet ;  he  that 
would  know  the  world,  was  under  the  necessity  of  gleaning  his 
own  remarks  by  mingling  as  he  could  in  its  business  and  amuse- 
ments. 

Boyle  congratulated  himself  upon  his  high  birth,  because  it 
favoured  his  curiosity  by  facilitating  his  access.  Shakespeare  had 
no  such  advantage ;  he  came  to  London  a  needy  adventurer,  and 
lived  for  a  time  by  very  mean  employments.  Many  works  of 
genius  and  learning  have  been  performed  in  states  of  life  that 
appear  very  little  favourable  to  thought  or  to  enquiry ;  so  many, 
that  he  who  considers  them  is  inclined  to  think  that  he  sees  enter- 
prize  and  perseverance  predominating  over  all  external  agency, 
and  bidding  help  and  hindrance  vanish  before  them.  The  genius 
of  Shakespeare  was  not  to  be  depressed  by  the  weight  of  poverty, 


PREFACE    TO   SHAKESPEARE.  449 

nor  limited  by  the  narrow  conversation  to  which  men  in  want  are 
inevitably  condemned ;  the  incumbrances  of  his  fortune  were 
shaken  from  his  mind,  "  as  dew  drops  from  a  lion's  mane." 

Though  he  had  so  many  difficulties  to  encounter,  and  so  little 
assistance  to  surmount  them,  he  has  been  able  to  obtain  an  exact 
knowledge  of  many  modes  of  life,  and  many  casts  of  native  dispo- 
sitions ;  to  vary  them  with  great  multiplicity ;  to  mark  them  by 
nice  distinctions  ;  and  to  show  them  in  full  view  by  proper  com- 
binations. In  this  part  of  his  performances  he  had  none  to  imi- 
tate, but  has  been  himself  imitated  by  all  succeeding  writers ;  and 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  from  all  his  successours  more  maxims 
of  theoretical  knowledge,  or  more  rules  of  practical  prudence,  can 
be  collected,  than  he  alone  has  given  to  his  country. 

Nor  was  his  attention  confined  to  the  actions  of  men;  he  was 
an  exact  surveyor  of  the  inanimate  world  ;  his  descriptions  have 
always  some  peculiarities,  gathered  by  contemplating  things  as 
they  really  exist.  It  may  be  observed  that  the  oldest  poets  of 
many  nations  preserve  their  reputation,  and  that  the  following  gen- 
erations of  wit,  after  a  short  celebrity,  sink  into  oblivion.  The 
first,  whoever  they  be,  must  take  their  sentiments  and  descriptions 
immediately  from  knowledge ;  the  resemblance  is  therefore  just, 
their  descriptions  are  verified  by  every  eye,  and  their  sentiments 
acknowledged  by  every  breast.  Those  whom  their  fame  invites  to 
the  same  studies  copy  partly  them,  and  partly  nature,  till  the  books 
of  one  age  gain  such  authority  as  to  stand  in  the  place  of  nature  to 
another,  and  imitation,  always  deviating  a  little,  becomes  at  last 
capricious  and  casual.  Shakespeare,  whether  life  or  nature  be  his 
subject,  shows  plainly  that  he  has  seen  with  his  own  eyes ;  he 
gives  the  image  which  he  receives,  not  weakened  or  distorted  by 
the  intervention  of  any  other  mind  ;  the  ignorant  feel  his  represen- 
tations to  be  just,  and  the  learned  see  that  they  are  complete. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  any  author,  except  Homer, 
who  invented  so  much  as  Shakespeare,  who  so  much  advanced 
the  studies  which  he  cultivated,  or  effused  so  much  novelty  upon 
his  age  or  country.  The  form,  the  characters,  the  language,  and 


450  SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

the  shows  of  the  English  drama  are  his.  "  He  seems,"  says  Den- 
nis, "to  have  been  the  very  original  of  our  English  tragical 
harmony,  that  is,  the  harmony  of  blank  verse,  diversified  often  by 
dissyllable  and  trissyllable  terminations.  For  the  diversity  distin- 
guishes it  from  heroick  harmony,  and  by  bringing  it  nearer  to 
common  use  makes  it  more  proper  to  gain  attention,  and  more 
fit  for  action  and  dialogue.  Such  verse  we  make  when  we  are 
writing  prose  ;  we  make  such  verse  in  common  conversation." 

I  know  not  whether  this  praise  is  rigorously  just.  The  dissylla- 
ble termination,  which  the  critick  rightly  appropriates  to  the 
drama,  is  to  be  found,  though,  I  think,  not  in  Gorboducf  which  is 
confessedly  before  our  author ;  yet  in  Hieronymof  of  which  the 
date  is  not  certain,  but  which  there  is  reason  to  believe  at  least  as 
old  as  his  earliest  plays.  This  however  is  certain,  that  he  is  the 
first  who  taught  either  tragedy  or  comedy  to  please,  there  being 
no  theatrical  piece  of  any  older  writer,  of  which  the  name  is 
known  except  to  antiquaries  and  collectors  of  books,  which  are 
sought  because  they  are  scarce,  and  would  not  have  been  scarce 
had  they  been  much  esteemed.6 

To  him  we  must  ascribe  the  praise,  unless  Spenser  may  divide 
it  with  him,  of  having  first  discovered  to  how  much  smoothness 
and  harmony  the  English  language  could  be  softened.  He  has 
speeches,  perhaps  sometimes  scenes,  which  have  all  the  delicacy 
of  Rowe,  without  his  effeminacy.  He  endeavours  indeed  com- 
monly to  strike  by  the  force  and  vigour  of  his  dialogue,  but  he 
never  executes  his  purpose  better  than  when  he  tries  to  soothe  by 
softness. 

Yet  it  must  be  at  last  confessed  that,  as  we  owe  everything  to 
him,  he  owes  something  to  us ;  that,  if  much  of  his  praise  is  paid 
by  perception  and  judgment,  much  is  likewise  given  by  custom 

4  Our  first  tragedy,  written  in  blank  verse  by  Sackville  and  Norton,  and 
acted  before  the  Queen,  Jan.  18,  1561. 

5  Ascribed  by  some  to  Thomas  Kyd,  who  wrote  its  continuation,  "  The 
Spanish  Tragedy,"  acted  about  1588. 

6  Johnson  singularly  omits  the  tragedies  of  Marlowe. 


PREFACE    TO   SHAKESPEARE.  451 

and  veneration.  We  fix  our  eyes  upon  his  graces,  and  turn 
them  from  his  deformities,  and  endure  in  him  what  we  should 
in  another  loathe  or  despise.  If  we  endured  without  praising, 
respect  for  the  father  of  our  drama  might  excuse  us ;  but  I  have 
seen,  in  the  book  of  some  modern  critick,  a  collection  of  anom- 
alies, which  show  that  he  has  corrupted  language  by  every  mode 
of  depravation,  but  which  his  admirer  has  accumulated  as  a  monu- 
ment of  honour. 

He  has  scenes  of  undoubted  and  perpetual  excellence ;  but  per- 
haps not  one  play,  which,  if  it  were  now  exhibited  as  the  work  of 
a  contemporary  writer,  would  be  heard  to  the  conclusion.  I  am, 
indeed,  far  from  thinking  that  his  works  were  wrought  to  his  own 
ideas  of  perfection ;  when  they  were  such  as  would  satisfy  the 
audience,  they  satisfied  the  writer.  It  is  seldom  that  authors, 
though  more  studious  of  fame  than  Shakespeare,  rise  much  above 
the  standard  of  their  own  age ;  to  add  a  little  to  what  is  best  will 
always  be  sufficient  for  present  praise,  and  those  who  find  them- 
selves exalted  into  fame,  are  willing  to  credit  their  encomiasts, 
and  to  spare  the  labour  of  contending  with  themselves. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Shakespeare  thought  his  works  worthy 
of  posterity,  that  he  levied  any  ideal  tribute  upon  future  times, 
or  had  any  further  prospect  than  of  present  popularity  and  present 
profit.  When  his  plays  had  been  acted,  his  hope  was  at  an  end ; 
he  solicited  no  addition  of  honour  from  the  reader.  He  there- 
fore made  no  scruple  to  repeat  the  same  jests  in  many  dialogues, 
or  to  entangle  different  plots  by  the  same  knot  of  perplexity ; 
which  may  be  at  least  forgiven  him  by  those  who  recollect,  that  of 
Congreve's  four  comedies,  two  are  concluded  by  a  marriage  in  a 
mask,  by  a  deception,  which  perhaps  never  happened,  and  which, 
whether  likely  or  not,  he  did  not  invent. 

So  careless  was  this  great  poet  of  future  fame  that,  though  he 
retired  to  ease  and  plenty,  while  he  was  yet  little  "  declined  into  the 
vale  of  years,"  before  he  could  be  disgusted  with  fatigue,  or  dis- 
abled by  infirmity,  he  made  no  collection  of  his  works,  nor  desired 
to  rescue  those  that  had  been  already  published  from  the  deprava- 


452  SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

tions  that  obscured  them,  or  secure  to  the  rest  a  better  destiny,  by 
giving  them  to  the  world  in  their  genuine  state. 

Of  the  plays  which  bear  the  name  of  Shakespeare  in  the  late 
editions,  the  greater  part  were  not  published  till  about  seven  years 
after  his  death ;  and  the  few  which  appeared  in  his  life  are  appar- 
ently thrust  into  the  world  without  the  care  of  the  author,  and 
therefore  probably  without  his  knowledge. 

Of  all  the  publishers,  clandestine  or  professed,  the  negligence 
and  unskilfulness  has  by  the  late  revisers  been  sufficiently  shown. 
The  faults  of  all  are,  indeed,  numerous  and  gross,  and  have  not 
only  corrupted  many  passages  perhaps  beyond  recovery,  but  have 
brought  others  into  suspicion,  which  are  only  obscured  by  obso- 
lete phraseology,  or  by  the  writer's  unskilfulness  or  affectation. 
To  alter  is  more  easy  than  to  explain,  and  temerity  is  a  more 
common  quality  than  diligence.  Those  who  saw  that  they  must 
employ  conjecture  to  a  certain  degree,  were  willing  to  indulge  it 
a  little  further.  Had  the  author  published  his  own  works,  we 
should  have  sat  quickly  down  to  disentangle  his  intricacies,  and 
clear  his  obscurities  ;  but  now  we  tear  what  we  cannot  loose,  and 
eject  what  we  happen  not  to  understand.7 

"  I  regret  that  lack  of  space  forbids  a  longer  selection  from  Johnson's 
"  Preface  to  Shakespeare,"  which  still  deserves  to  be  read  by  every  student  of 
Shakespeare. 


XXII. 

EDMUND    BURKE. 

(1728-1797.) 

SPEECH  ON  CONCILIATION-  WITH  AMERICA. 

[Delivered  March  22,  1775.] 

THESE,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  not  entertaining  that  high  opinion 
of  untried  force,  by  which  many  gentlemen,  for  whose  sentiments 
in  other  particulars  I  have  great  respect,  seem  to  be  so  greatly 
captivated.  But  there  is  still  behind  a  third  consideration  con- 
cerning this  object,  which  serves  to  determine  my  opinion  on  the 
sort  of  policy  which  ought  to  be  pursued  in  the  management  of 
America,  even  more  than  its  population  and  its  commerce,  I 
mean  its  temper  and  character. 

In  this  character  of  the  Americans,  a  love  of  freedom  is  the 
predominating  feature  which  marks  and  distinguishes  the  whole  ; 
and  as  an  ardent  is  always  a  jealous  affection,  your  Colonies 
become  suspicious,  restive,  and  untractable,  whenever  they  see 
the  least  attempt  to  wrest  from  them  by  force  or  shuffle  from  them 
by  chicane,  what  they  think  the  only  advantage  worth  living  for. 
This  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  is  stronger  in  the  English  Colonies 
probably  than  in  any  other  people  of  the  earth ;  and  this  from  a 
great  variety  of  powerful  causes ;  which,  to  understand  the  true 
temper  of  their  minds,  and  the  direction  which  this  spirit  takes,  it 
will  not  be  amiss  to  lay  open  somewhat  more  largely. 

First,  the  people  of  the  Colonies  are  descendants  of  Englishmen. 
England,  Sir,  is  a  nation  which  still  I  hope  respects,  and  formerly 
adored,  her  freedom.  The  Colonists  emigrated  from  you  when 

453 


454  EDMUND  BURKE. 

this  part  of  your  character  was  most  predominant ;  and  they  took 
this  bias  and  direction  the  moment  they  parted  from  your  hands. 
They  are  therefore  not  only  devoted  to  liberty,  but  to  liberty 
according  to  English  ideas,  and  on  English  principles.  Abstract 
liberty,  like  other  mere  abstractions,  is  not  to  be  found.  Liberty 
inheres  in  some  sensible  object ;  and  every  nation  has  formed  to 
itself  some  favourite  point,  which  by  way  of  eminence  becomes 
the  criterion  of  their  happiness.  It  happened,  you  know,  Sir,  that 
the  great  contests  for  freedom  in  this  country  were  from  the  ear- 
liest times  chiefly  upon  the  question  of  taxing.  Most  of  the  con- 
tests in  the  ancient  commonwealths  turned  primarily  on  the  right 
of  election  of  magistrates ;  or  on  the  balance  among  the  several 
orders  of  the  State.  The  question  of  money  was  not  with  them  so 
immediate.  But  in  England  it  was  otherwise.  On  this  point  of 
taxes  the  ablest  pens  and  most  eloquent  tongues  have  been  exer- 
cised ;  the  greatest  spirits  have  acted  and  suffered.  In  order  to 
give  the  fullest  satisfaction  concerning  the  importance  of  this 
point,  it  was  not  only  necessary  for  those  who  in  argument  de- 
fended the  excellence  of  the  English  Constitution  to  insist  on  this 
privilege  of  granting  money  as  a  dry  point  of  fact,  and  to  prove 
that  the  right  had  been  acknowledged  in  ancient  parchments  and 
blind  usage  to  reside  in  a  certain  body  called  a  House  of  Com- 
mons. They  went  much  farther ;  they  attempted  to  prove,  and 
they  succeeded,  that  in  theory  it  ought  to  be  so,  from  the  partic- 
ular nature  of  a  House  of  Commons  as  an  immediate  represen- 
tative of  the  people,  whether  the  old  records  had  delivered  this 
oracle  or  not.  They  took  infinite  pains  to  inculcate,  as  a  funda- 
mental principle,  that  in  all  monarchies  the  people  must  in  effect 
themselves,  mediately  or  immediately,  possess  the  power  of 
granting  their  own  money,  or  no  shadow  of  liberty  could  subsist. 
The  Colonies  draw  from  you,  as  with  their  life-blood,  these  ideas 
and  principles.  Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with  you,  fixed  and 
attached  on  this  specific  point  of  taxing.  Liberty  might  be  safe, 
or  might  be  endangered,  in  twenty  other  particulars,  without  their 
being  much  pleased  or  alarmed.  Here  they  felt  its  pulse  ;  and  as 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  455 

they  found  that  beat,  they  thought  themselves  sick  or  sound.  I 
do  not  say  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in  applying  your 
general  arguments  to  their  own  cause.  It  is  not  easy  indeed  to 
make  a  monopoly  of  theorems  and  corollaries.  The  fact  is,  that 
they  did  thus  apply  those  general  arguments ;  and  your  mode  of 
governing  them,  whether  through  lenity  or  indolence,  through 
wisdom  or  mistake,  confirmed  them  in  the  imagination,  that  they, 
as  well  as  you,  had  an  interest  in  these  common  principles. 

They  were  further  confirmed  in  this  pleasing  error  by  the  form 
of  their  provincial  legislative  assemblies.  Their  governments  are 
popular  in  a  high  degree ;  some  are  merely l  popular ;  in  all,  the 
popular  representative  is  the  most  weighty ;  and  this  share  of  the 
people  in  their  ordinary  government  never  fails  to  inspire  them  with 
lofty  sentiments,  and  with  a  strong  aversion  from 2  whatever  tends 
to  deprive  them  of  their  chief  importance. 

If  anything  were  wanting  to  this  necessary  operation  of  the  form 
of  government,  religion  would  have  given  it  a  complete  effect. 
Religion,  always  a  principle  of  energy,  in  this  new  people  is  no 
way  worn  out  or  impaired ;  and  their  mode  of  professing  it  is  also 
one  main  cause  of  this  free  spirit.  The  people  are  Protestants ; 
and  of  that  kind  which  is  the  most  adverse  to  all  implicit  submis- 
sion of  mind  and  opinion.  This  is  a  persuasion  not  only  favour- 
able to  liberty,  but  built  upon  it.  I  do  not  think,  Sir,  that  the 
reason  of  this  averseness  in  the  dissenting  churches,  from  all  that 
looks  like  absolute  government,  is  so  much  to  be  sought  in  their 
religious  tenets  as  in  their  history.  Every  one  knows  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  is  at  least  coeval  with  most  of  the  gov- 
ernments where  it  prevails ;  that  it  has  generally  gone  hand  in 
hand  with  them,  and  received  great  favour  and  every  kind  of  sup- 
port from  authority.  The  Church  of  England  too  was  formed 
from  her  cradle  under  the  nursing  care  of  regular  government. 
But  the  dissenting  interests  have  sprung  up  in  direct  opposition 
to  all  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  world ;  and  could  justify  that 
opposition  only  on  a  strong  claim  to  natural  liberty.  Their  very 

1  entirely.  2  correct,  but  now  regarded  as  archaic. 


456  EDMUND  BURKE. 

existence  depended  on  the  powerful  and  unremitted  assertion  of 
that  claim.  All  Protestantism,  even  the  most  cold  and  passive,  is 
a  sort  of  dissent.  But  the  religion  most  prevalent  in  our  Northern 
Colonies  is  a  refinement  on  the  principle  of  resistance ;  it  is  the 
dissidence  of  dissent,  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant 
religion.  This  religion,  under  a  variety  of  denominations  agreeing 
in  nothing  but  in  the  communion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  is  pre- 
dominant in  most  of  the  Northern  provinces,  where  the  Church  of 
England,  notwithstanding  its  legal  rights,  is  in  reality  no  more  than 
a  sort  of  private  sect,  not  composing  most  probably  the  tenth  of 
the  people.  The  Colonists  left  England  when  this  spirit  was  high, 
and  in  the  emigrants  was  the  highest  of  all,  and  even  that  stream 
of  foreigners,  which  has  been  constantly  flowing  into  these  Colo- 
nies, has,  for  the  greatest  part,  been  composed  of  dissenters  from 
the  establishments  of  their  several  countries,  and  have  brought 
with  them  a  temper  and  character  far  from  alien  to  that  of  the 
people  with  whom  they  mixed. 

Sir,  I  can  perceive  by  their  manner,  that  some  gentlemen  object 
to  the  latitude  of  this  description,  because  in  the  Southern  Colo- 
nies the  Church  of  England  forms  a  large  body,  and  has  a  regular 
establishment.  It  is  certainly  true.  There  is,  however,  a  cir- 
cumstance attending  these  Colonies,  which,  in  my  opinion,  fully 
counterbalances  this  difference,  and  makes  the  spirit  of  liberty 
still  more  high  and  haughty  than  in  those  to  the  Northward.  It  is, 
that  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  they  have  a  vast  multitude  of 
slaves.  Where  this  is  the  case  in  any  part  of  the  world,  those  who 
are  free  are  by  far  the  most  proud  and  jealous  of  their  freedom. 
Freedom  is  to  them  not  only  an  enjoyment,  but  a  kind  of  rank 
and  privilege.  Not  seeing  there,  that  freedom,  as  in  countries 
where  it  is  a  common  blessing,  and  as  broad  and  general  as  the 
air,3  may  be  united  with  much  abject  toil,  with  great  misery,  with 
all  the  exterior  of  servitude,  liberty  looks,  amongst  them,  like 
something  that  is  more  noble  and  liberal.  I  do  not  mean,  Sir,  to 
commend  the  superior  morality  of  this  sentiment,  which  has  at 

8  Macbeth,  III.  4.  —  PAYNE. 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  457 

least  as  much  pride  as  virtue  in  it ;  but  I  cannot  alter  the  nature 
of  man.  The  fact  is  so ;  and  these  people  of  the  Southern  Colo- 
nies are  much  more  strongly,  and  with  a  higher  and  more  stub- 
born spirit,  attached  to  liberty,  than  those  to  the  Northward.  Such 
were  all  the  ancient  commonwealths;  such  were  our  Gothick 
ancestors ;  such  in  our  days  were  the  Poles ;  and  such  will  be 
all  masters  of  slaves  who  are  not  slaves  themselves.  In  such  a 
people,  the  haughtiness  of  domination  combines  with  the  spirit  of 
freedom,  fortifies  it,  and  renders  it  invincible. 

Permit  me,  Sir,  to  add  another  circumstance  in  our  Colonies, 
which  contributes  no  mean  part  towards  the  growth  and  effect  of 
this  untractable  spirit.  I  mean  their  education.  In  no  country 
perhaps  in  the  world  is  the  law  so  general  a  study.  The  profession 
itself  is  numerous  and  powerful ;  and  in  most  provinces  it  takes 
the  lead.  The  greater  number  of  the  deputies  sent  to  the  Con- 
gress were  lawyers.  But  all  who  read  (and  most  do  read),  en- 
deavour to  obtain  some  smattering  in  that  science.  I  have  been 
told  by  an  eminent  bookseller,  that  in  no  branch  of  his  business, 
after  tracts  of  popular  devotion,  were  so  many  books  as  those  on 
the  law  exported  to  the  plantations.  The  Colonists  have  now 
fallen  into  the  way  of  printing  them  for  their  own  use.  I  hear 
that  they  have  sold  nearly  as  many  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries 
in  America  as  in  England.  General  Gage  marks  out  this  dispo- 
sition very  particularly  in  a  letter  on  your  table.  He  states  that 
all  the  people  in  his  Government  are  lawyers,  or  smatterers  in 
law;  and  that  in  Boston  they  have  been  enabled,  by  successful 
chicane,  wholly  to  evade  many  parts  of  one  of  your  capital  penal 
constitutions.  The  smartness  of  debate  will  say  that  this  knowl- 
edge ought  to  teach  them  more  clearly  the  rights  of  legislature, 
their  obligations  to  obedience,  and  the  penalties  of  rebellion.  All 
this  is  mighty4  well.  But  my  honourable  and  learned  friend5  on 
the  floor,  who  condescends  to  mark  what  I  say  for  animadversion, 
will  disdain  that  ground.  He  has  heard,  as  well  as  I,  that  when 
great  honours  and  great  emoluments  do  not  win  over  this  knowl- 

*  Now  colloquial.         6  The  Attorney-General  (Thurlow).  —  PAYNE. 


45$  EDA1UND  BURKE. 

edge  to  the  service  of  the  State,  it  is  a  formidable  adversary  to 
Government.  If  the  spirit  be  not  tamed  and  broken  by  these 
happy  methods,  it  is  stubborn  and  litigious.  Abeunt  studio,  in 
mores,6  This  study  renders  men  acute,  inquisitive,  dexterous, 
prompt  in  attack,  ready  in  defence,  full  of  resources.  In  other 
countries,  the  people,  more  simple,  and  of  a  less  mercurial  cast, 
judge  of  an  ill  principle  in  government  only  by  an  actual  griev- 
ance ;  here  they  anticipate  the  evil,  and  judge  of  the  pressure  of 
the  grievance  by  the  badness  of  the  principle.  They  augur  mis- 
government  at  a  distance ;  and  snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in 
every  tainted  breeze. 

The  last  cause  of  this  disobedient  spirit  in  the  Colonies  is  hardly 
less  powerful  than  the  rest,  as  it  is  not  merely  moral,  but  laid  deep 
in  the  natural  constitution  of  things.  Three  thousand  miles  of 
ocean  lie  between  you  and  them.  No  contrivance  can  prevent 
the  effect  of  this  distance  in  weakening  government.  Seas  roll, 
and  months  pass,  between  the  order  and  the  execution ;  and  the 
want  of  a  speedy  explanation  of  a  single  point  is  enough  to  defeat 
a  whole  system.  You  have,  indeed,  "  winged  ministers  of  ven- 
geance," who  carry  your  bolts  in  their  pounces  to  the  remotest 
verge  of  the  sea.7  But  there  a  power  steps  in,  that  limits  the  arro- 
gance of  raging  passions  and  furious  elements,  and  says,  "  So  far 
shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther."  8  Who  are  you,  that  you  should  fret 
and  rage,  and  bite  the  chains  of  Nature  ?  —  nothing  worse  happens 
to  you  than  does  to  all  nations  who  have  extensive  empire  ;  and  it 
happens  in  all  the  forms  into  which  empire  can  be  thrown.  In 
large  bodies,  the  circulation  of  power  must  be  less  vigorous  at  the 
extremities.  Nature  has  said  it.  The  Turk  cannot  govern  Egypt, 
and  Arabia,  and  Kurdistan,  as  he  governs  Thrace  ;  nor  has  he  the 
same  dominion  in  Crimea  and  Algiers  which  he  has  at  Brusa  and 

6  Studies  pass  into  character.  —  OVID,  Heroides,  Epistle  XV.  83.     The  quo- 
tation is  evidently  adopted  from  Bacon's  Essay  "  Of  Studies/'  —  PAYNE. 

7  Payne  refers  to  MILTON,  Paradise  Lost,  I.  170,  and  III.  229,  as  well  as 
to  HORACE,  Odes,  IV.  I. 

8  Job  xxxviii.  1 1 . 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  459 

Smyrna.  Despotism  itself  is  obliged  to  truck  and  huckster.  The 
Sultan  gets  such  obedience  as  he  can.  He  governs  with  a  loose 
rein,  that  he  may  govern  at  all ;  and  the  whole  of  the  force  and 
vigour  of  his  authority  in  his  centre  is  derived  from  a  prudent 
relaxation  in  all  his  borders.  Spain,  in  her  provinces,  is  perhaps 
not  so  well  obeyed  as  you  are  in  yours.  She  complies  too ;  she 
submits ;  she  watches  times.  This  is  the  immutable  condition, 
the  eternal  law,  of  extensive  and  detached  empire.9 

Then,  Sir,  from  these  six  capital  sources  ;  of  descent ;  of  form 
of  government ;  of  religion  in  the  northern  provinces  ;  of  manners 
in  the  southern ;  of  education  ;  of  the  remoteness  of  situation  from 
the  first  mover  of  government ;  from  all  these  causes  a  fierce 
spirit  of  liberty  has  grown  up.  It  has  grown  with  the  growth  of 
the  people  in  your  Colonies,  and  increased  with  the  increase  of 
their  wealth ;  a  spirit,  that  unhappily  meeting  with  an  exercise 
of  power  in  England,  which,  however  lawful,  is  not  reconcileable  to 
any  ideas  of  liberty,  much  less  with  theirs,  has  kindled  this  flame 
that  is  ready  to  consume  us. 

I  do  not  mean  to  commend  either  the  spirit  in  this  excess,  or 
the  moral  causes  which  produce  it.  Perhaps  a  more  smooth  and 
accommodating  spirit  of  freedom  in  them  would  be  more  accept- 
able to  us.  Perhaps  ideas  of  liberty  might  be  desired  more 
reconcileable  with  an  arbitrary  and  boundless  authority.  Perhaps 
we  might  wish  the  Colonists  to  be  persuaded  that. their  liberty  is 
more  secure  when  held  in  trust  for  them  by  us  (as  their  guardians 
during  a  perpetual  minority)  than  with  any  part  of  it  in  their  own 
hands.  The  question  is,  not  whether  their  spirit  deserves  praise 
or  blame,  but  what,  in  the  name  of  God,  shall  we  do  with  it  ? 
You  have  before  you  the  object,  such  as  it  is,  with  all  its  glories, 
with  all  its  imperfections  on  its  head.  You  see  the  magnitude, 
the  importance,  the  temper,  the  habits,  the  disorders.  By  all 
these  considerations  we  are  strongly  urged  to  determine  something 
concerning  it.  We  are  called  upon  to  fix  some  rule  and  line  for 

9  Payne  thinks  that  Burke  generalizes  from  two  bad  instances,  Spain  and 
Turkey;  that  it  is  otherwise  with  England  and  Russia. 


460  EDMUND  BURKE. 

our  future  conduct,  which  may  give  a  little  stability  to  our  politics, 
and  prevent  the  return  of  such  unhappy  deliberations  as  the  pres- 
ent. Every  such  return  will  bring  the  matter  before  us  in  a  still 
more  untractable  form.  For,  what  astonishing  and  incredible 
things  have  we  not  seen  already  !  What  monsters  have  not  been 
generated  from  this  unnatural  contention  !  Whilst  every  principle 
of  authority  and  resistance  has  been  pushed,  upon  both  sides,  as 
far  as  it  would  go,  there  is  nothing  so  solid  and  certain,  either  in 
reasoning  or  in  practice,  that  has  not  been  shaken.  Until  very 
lately,  all  authority  in  America  seemed  to  be  nothing  but  an 
emanation  from  yours.  Even  the  popular  part  of  the  Colony  Con- 
stitution derived  all  its  activity,  and  its  first  vital  movement,  from 
the  pleasure  of  the  Crown.  We  thought,  Sir,  that  the  utmost 
which  the  discontented  Colonists  could  do  was  to  disturb  author- 
ity ;  we  never  dreamt  they  could  of  themselves  supply  it ;  knowing 
in  general  what  an  operose  business  it  is  to  establish  a  government 
absolutely  new.  But  having,  for  our  purposes  in  this  contention, 
resolved  that  none  but  an  obedient  assembly  should  sit ;  the 
humours  of  the  people  there  finding  all  passage  through  the  legal 
channel  stopped,  with  great  violence  broke  out  another  way. 
Some  provinces  have  tried  their  experiment,  as  we  have  tried 
ours  ;  and  theirs  has  succeeded.  They  have  formed  a  government 
sufficient  for  its  purposes,  without  the  bustle  of  a  revolution,  or 
the  troublesome  formality  of  an  election.  Evident  necessity  and 
tacit  consent  have  done  the  business  in  an  instant.  So  well  they 
have  done  it,  that  Lord  Dunmore 10  —  the  account  is  among  the 
fragments  on  your  table  —  tells  you  that  the  new  institution  is 
infinitely  better  obeyed  than  the  ancient  government  ever  was  in 
its  most  fortunate  periods.  Obedience  is  what  makes  govern- 
ment, and  not  the  names  by  which  it  is  called ;  not  the  name  of 
Governor,  as  formerly,  or  Committee,  as  at  present.  This  new 

10  Lord  Dunmore  fled  from  Williamsburg,  Virginia,  thus  abdicating  his 
authority,  June  8,  1775,  and  the  Convention  that  met  in  July  appointed  the 
famous  Committee  of  Safety,  which  governed  the  State  until  Patrick  Henry 
became  Governor  in  July,  1776. 


CONCILIA  TION   WITH  AMERICA.  461 

government  has  originated  directly  from  the  people ;  and  was  not 
transmitted  through  any  of  the  ordinary  artificial  media  of  a  pos- 
itive constitution.  It  was  not  a  manufacture  ready  formed,  and 
transmitted  to  them  in  that  condition  from  England.  The  evil 
arising  from  hence  is  this,  that  the  Colonists  having  once  found 
the  possibility  of  enjoying  the  advantages  of  order  in  the  midst 
of  a  struggle  for  liberty,  such  struggles  will  not  henceforward  seem 
so  terrible  to  the  settled  and  sober  part  of  mankind  as  they  had 
appeared  before  the  trial. 

Pursuing  the  same  plan  of  punishing  by  the  denial  of  the  exer- 
cise of  government  to  still  greater  lengths,  we  wholly  abrogated 
the  ancient  government  of  Massachusetts.  We  were  confident 
that  the  first  feeling,  if  not  the  very  prospect  of  anarchy,  would 
instantly  enforce  a  complete  submission.  The  experiment  was 
tried.  A  new,  strange,  unexpected  phase  of  things  appeared. 
Anarchy  is  found  tolerable.  A  vast  province  has  now  subsisted, 
and  subsisted  in  a  considerable  degree  of  health  and  vigour,  for 
near  a  twelvemonth,  without  Governor,  without  public  council, 
without  judges,  without  executive  magistrates.  How  long  it  will 
continue  in  this  state,  or  what  may  arise  out  of  this  unheard-of 
situation,  how  can  the  wisest  of  us  conjecture  ?  Our  late  experi- 
ence has  taught  us  that  many  of  those  fundamental  principles 
formerly  believed  infallible,  are  either  not  of  the  importance  they 
were  imagined  to  be ;  or  that  we  have  not  at  all  adverted  to  some 
other  far  more  important  and  far  more  powerful  principles,  which 
entirely  overrule  those  we  had  considered  as  omnipotent.  I  am 
much  against  any  further  experiments,  which  tend  to  put  to  the 
proof  any  more  of  these  allowed  opinions,  which  contribute  so 
much  to  the  public  tranquillity.  In  effect,  we  suffer  as  much  at 
home  by  this  loosening  of  all  ties,  and  this  concussion  of  all  estab- 
lished opinions,  as  we  do  abroad.  For,  in  order  to  prove  that  the 
Americans  have  no  right  to  their  liberties,  we  are  every  day  en- 
deavouring to  subvert  the  maxims  which  preserve  the  whole  spirit 
of  our  own.  To  prove  that  the  Americans  ought  not  to  be  free, 
we  are  obliged  to  depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself;  and  we 


462  EDMUND  BURKE. 

never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over  them  in  debate,  with- 
out attacking  some  of  those  principles,  or  deriding  some  of  those 
feelings,  for  which  our  ancestors  have  shed  their  blood. 

But,  Sir,  in  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  pernicious  experiments,  I 
do  not  mean  to  preclude  the  fullest  inquiry.  Far  from  it.  Far 
from  deciding  on  a  sudden  or  partial  view,  I  would  patiently  go 
round  and  round  the  subject,  and  survey  it  minutely  in  every 
possible  aspect.  Sir,  if  I  were  capable  of  engaging  you  to  an 
equal  attention,  I  would  state  that,  as  far  as  I  am  capable  of  dis- 
cerning, there  are  but  three  ways  of  proceeding  relative  to  this 
stubborn  spirit,  which  prevails  in  your  Colonies,  and  disturbs  your 
government.  These  are  :  to  change  that  spirit,  as  inconvenient, 
by  removing  the  causes ;  to  prosecute  it  as  criminal ;  or,  to  com- 
ply with  it  as  necessary.  I  would  not  be  guilty  of  an  imperfect 
enumeration ;  I  can  think  of  but  these  three.  Another  has 
indeed  been  started,  that  of  giving  up  the  Colonies ;  but  it  met  so 
slight  a  reception,  that  I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to  dwell  a 
great  while  upon  it.  It  is  nothing  but  a  little  sally  of  anger,  like 
the  forwardness  of  peevish  children,  who,  when  they  cannot  get 
all  they  would  have,  are  resolved  to  take  nothing. 

The  first  of  these  plans,  to  change  the  spirit  as  inconvenient,  by 
removing  the  causes,  I  think  is  the  most  like  a  systematic  pro- 
ceeding. It  is  radical  in  its  principle ;  but  it  is  attended  with 
great  difficulties,  some  of  them  little  short,  as  I  conceive,  of 
impossibilities.  This  will  appear  by  examining  into  the  plans 
which  have  been  proposed. 

As  the  growing  population  in  the  Colonies  is  evidently  one 
cause  of  their  resistance,  it  was  last  session  mentioned  in  both 
Houses,  by  men  of  weight,  and  received  not  without  applause, 
that  in  order  to  check  this  evil,  it  would  be  proper  for  the  Crown 
to  make  no  further  grants  of  land.  But  to  this  scheme  there  are 
two  objections.  The  first,  that  there  is  already  so  much  unsettled 
land  in  private  hands  as  to  afford  room  for  an  immense  future 
population,  although  the  Crown  not  only  withheld  its  grants,  but 
annihilated  its  soil.  If  this  be  the  case,  then  the  only  effect  of 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  463 

this  avarice  of  desolation,  this  hoarding  of  a  royal  wilderness, 
would  be  to  raise  the  value  of  the  possessions  in  the  hands  of  the 
great  private  monopolists,  without  any  adequate  check  to  the 
growing  and  alarming  mischief  of  population. 

But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would  be  the  consequence  ? 
The  people  would  occupy  without  grants.  They  have  already  so 
occupied  in  many  places.  You  cannot  station  garrisons  in  every 
part  of  these  deserts.  If  you  drive  the  people  from  one  place, 
they  will  carry  on  their  annual  tillage,  and  remove  with  their  flocks 
and  herds  to  another.  Many  of  the  people  in  the  back  settle- 
ments are  already  little  attached  to  particular  situations.  Already 
they  have  topped  the  Apalachian  mountains.  From  thence  they 
behold  before  them  an  immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich,  level 
meadow ;  a  square  of  five  hundred  miles.  Over  this  they  would, 
wander  without  a  possibility  of  restraint ;  they  would  change  their 
manners  with  the  habits  of  their  life  ;  would  soon  forget  a  gov- 
ernment by  which  they  were  disowned ;  would  become  hordes  of 
English  Tartars ;  and  pouring  down  upon  your  unfortified  fron- 
tiers a  fierce  and  irresistible  cavalry,  become  masters  of  your 
Governors  and  your  counsellors,  your  collectors  and  comptrollers, 
and  of  all  the  slaves  that  adhered  to  them.  Such  would,  and  in 
no  long  time  must,  be  the  effect  of  attempting  to  forbid  as  a  crime, 
and  to  suppress  as  an  evil,  the  command  and  blessing  of  Provi- 
dence, "  Encrease  and  Multiply."11  Such  would  be  the  happy 
result  of  an  endeavour  to  keep,  as  a  lair  of  wild  beasts,  that  earth 
which  God,  by  an  express  charter,  has  given  to  the  children  of 
men.  Far  different,  and  surely  much  wiser,  has  been  our  policy 
hitherto.  Hitherto  we  have  invited  our  people,  by  every  kind  of 
bounty,  to  fixed  establishments.  We  have  invited  the  husband- 
man to  look  to  authority  for  his  title.  We  have  taught  him 
piously  to  believe  in  the  mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and  parchment. 
We  have  thrown  each  tract  of  land,  as  it  was  peopled,  into 
districts,  that  the  ruling  power  should  never  be  wholly  out  of 

11  Payne  refers  to  Paradise  Lost,  X.  730,  and  to  the  Vulgate  version. 
"  Crescite  et  multiplicamini." 


464  EDMUND  BURKE. 

sight.  We  have  settled  all  we  could ;  and  we  have  carefully 
attended  every  settlement  with  government. 

Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as  well  as  for  the  reasons 
I  have  just  given,  I  think  this  new  project  of  hedging-in  popula- 
tion to  be  neither  prudent  nor  practicable. 

To  impoverish  the  Colonies  in  general,  and  in  particular  to 
arrest  the  noble  course  of  their  marine  enterprises,  would  be  a 
more  easy  task.  I  freely  confess  it.  We  have  shown  a  disposition 
to  a  system  of  this  kind ;  a  disposition  even  to  continue  the  re- 
straint after  the  offence ;  looking  on  ourselves  as  rivals  to  our 
Colonies,  and  persuaded  that  of  course  we  must  gain  all  that  they 
shall  lose.  Much  mischief  we  may  certainly  do.  The  power 
inadequate  to  all  other  things  is  often  more  than  sufficient  for 
this.  I  do  not  look  on  the  direct  and  immediate  power  of  the 
Colonies  to  resist  our  violence  as  very  formidable.  In  this,  how- 
ever, I  may  be  mistaken.  But  when  I  consider  that  we  have 
Colonies  for  no  purpose  but  to  be  serviceable  to  us,  it  seems  to  my 
poor  understanding  a  little  preposterous  to  make  them  unservice- 
able, in  order  to  keep  them  obedient.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  the  old,  and,  as  I  thought,  exploded  problem  of  tyr- 
anny, which  proposes  to  beggar  its  subjects  into  submission.  But 
remember,  when  you  have  completed  your  system  of  impover- 
ishment, that  Nature  still  proceeds  in  her  ordinary  course ;  that 
discontent  will  increase  with  misery ;  and  that  there  are  critical 
moments  in  the  fortune  of  all  States,  when  they  who  are  too  weak 
to  contribute  to  your  prosperity  may  be  strong  enough  to  complete 
your  ruin.  Spoliatis  anna  supersunt™ 

The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in  our  Colonies,  are, 
I  am  afraid,  unalterable  by  any  human  art.  We  cannot,  I  fear, 
falsify  the  pedigree  of  this  fierce  people,  and  persuade  them  that 
they  are  not  sprung  from  a  nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of 
freedom  circulates.  The  language  in  which  they  would  hear  you 
tell  them  this  tale  would  detect  the  imposition  :  your  speech  would 

12  Arms  remain  to  the  despoiled.  — JUVENAL,  Satires,  VIII.  124. 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  465 

betray  you.  An  Englishman  is  the  unfittest  person  on  earth  to 
argue  another  Englishman  into  slavery. 

I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to  change  their  repub- 
lican religion  as  their  free  descent ;  or  to  substitute  the  Roman 
Catholic,  as  a  penalty;  or  the  Church  of  England,  as  an  improve- 
ment. The  mode  of  inquisition  and  dragooning  is  going  out  of 
fashion  in  the  Old  World,  and  I  should  not  confide  much  to  their 
efficacy  in  the  New.  The  education  of  the  Americans  is  also  on 
the  same  unalterable  bottom  with  their  religion.  You  cannot  per- 
suade them  to  burn  their  books  of  curious  science  ;  to  banish  their 
lawyers  from  their  courts  of  laws ;  or  to  quench  the  lights  of  their 
assemblies,  by  refusing  to  choose  those  persons  who  are  best  read 
in  their  privileges.  It  would  be  no  less  impracticable  to  think  of 
wholly  annihilating  the  popular  assemblies,  in  which  these  lawyers 
sit.  The  army,  by  which  we  must  govern  in  their  place,  would  be 
far  more  chargeable 13  to  us ;  not  quite  so  effectual ;  and  perhaps, 
in  the  end,  full  as  difficult  to  be  kept  in  obedience. 

With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit  of  Virginia  and  the 
Southern  Colonies,  it  has  been  proposed,  I  know,  to  reduce  it,  by 
declaring  a  general  enfranchisement  of  their  slaves.  This  project 
has  had  its  advocates  and  panegyrists ;  yet  I  never  could  argue 
myself  into  any  opinion  of  it.  Slaves  are  often  much  attached  to 
their  masters.  A  general  wild  offer  of  liberty  would  not  always  be 
accepted.  History  furnishes  few  instances  of  it.  It  is  sometimes 
as  hard  to  persuade  slaves  to  be  free,  as  it  is  to  compel  freemen 
to  be  slaves ;  and  in  this  auspicious  scheme  we  should  have  both 
these  pleasing  tasks  on  our  hands  at  once.  But  when  we  talk  of 
enfranchisement,  do  we  not  perceive  that  the  American  master 
may  enfranchise  too,  and  arm  servile  hands  in  defence  of  freedom  ? 
A  measure  to  which  other  people  have  had  recourse  more  than 
once,  and  not  without  success,  in  a  desperate  situation  of  their 
affairs. 

Slaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people  are,  and  dull  as  all  men 
are  from  slavery,  must  they  not  a  little  suspect  the  offer  of  freedom 

18  expensive. 


466  EDMUND  BURKE. 

from  that  very  nation  which  has  sold  them  to  their  present  mas 
ters  ?  from  that  nation,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel  with  those 
masters  is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more  in  that  inhuman  traffic  ? 
An  offer  of  freedom  from  England  would  come  rather  oddly, 
shipped  to  them  in  an  African  vessel,  which  is  refused  an  entry 
into  the  ports  of  Virginia  or  Carolina,  with  a  cargo  of  three  hun- 
dred Angola  negroes.  It  would  be  curious  to  see  the  Guinea 
captain  attempting  at  the  same  instant  to  publish  his  proclamation 
of  liberty,  and  to  advertise  his  sale  of  slaves. 

But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difficulties  got  over.  The 
ocean  remains.  You  cannot  pump  this  dry;  and  as  long  as  it 
continues  in  its  present  bed,  so  long  all  the  causes  which  weaken 
authority  by  distance  will  continue.  "Ye  gods,  annihilate  but 
space  and  time,  and  make  two  lovers  happy  !  "  u  was  a  pious  and 
passionate  prayer ;  but  just  as  reasonable  as  many  of  the  serious 
wishes  of  very  grave  and  solemn  politicians. 

If  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to  think  of  any  alterna- 
tive course  for  changing  the  moral  causes,  and  not  quite  easy  to 
remove  the  natural,  which  produce  prejudices  irreconcileable  to 
the  late  exercise  of  our  authority,  but  that  the  spirit  infallibly  will 
continue,  and,  continuing,  will  produce  such  effects  as  now  em- 
barrass us ;  the  second  mode  under  consideration  is  to  prosecute 
that  spirit  in  its  overt  acts  as  criminal. 

At  this  proposition  I  must  pause  a  moment.  The  thing  seems 
a  great  deal  too  big  for  my  ideas  of  jurisprudence.  It  should 
seem  to  my  way  of  conceiving  such  matters,  that  there  is  a  very 
wide  difference  in  reason  and  policy  between  the  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding on  the  irregular  conduct  of  scattered  individuals,  or  even 
of  bands  of  men,  who  disturb  order  within  the  State,  and  the  civil 
dissensions  which  may,  from  time  to  time,  on  great  questions,  agi- 
tate the  several  communities  which  compose  a  great  empire.  It 
looks  to  me  to  be  narrow  and  pedantic  to  apply  the  ordinary 

14  This  piece  of  fustian  is  taken  from  Martinus  Scriblerus,  Of  the  Art  oj 
Sinking  in  Poetry,  where  it  is  cited  without  name.  It  is  said  to  come  from  one 
of  Dryden's  plays.  —  PAYNE. 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  467 

ideas  of  criminal  justice  to  this  great  public  contest.  I  do  not 
know  the  method  of  drawing  up  an  indictment  against  a  whole 
people.15  I  cannot  insult  and  ridicule  the  feelings  of  millions  of 
my  fellow-creatures,  as  Sir  Edward  Coke  insulted  one  excellent 
individual  (Sir  Walter  Rawleigh)  at  the  bar.  I  hope  I  am  not 
ripe  to  pass  sentence  on  the  gravest  public  bodies,  entrusted  with 
magistracies  of  great  authority  and  dignity,  and  charged  with  the 
safety  of  their  fellow- citizens,  upon  the  very  same  title  that  I  am. 
I  really  think  that,  for  wise  men,  this  is  not  judicious ;  for  sober 
men,  not  decent ;  for  minds  tinctured  with  humanity,  not  mild  and 
merciful. 

Perhaps,  Sir,  I  am  mistaken  in  my  idea  of  an  empire,  as  distin- 
guished from  a  single  State  or  kingdom.  But  my  idea  of  it  is  this  : 
that  an  empire  is  the  aggregate  of  many  States  under  one  common 
head  ;  whether  this  head  be  a  monarch,  or  a  presiding  republic. 
It  does,  in  such  constitutions,  frequently  happen  (and  nothing  but 
the  dismal,  cold,  dead  uniformity  of  servitude  can  prevent  its 
happening)  that  the  subordinate  parts  have  many  local  privileges 
and  immunities.  Between  these  privileges  and  the  supreme 
common  authority  the  line  may  be  extremely  nice.  Of  course, 
disputes,  often,  too,  very  bitter  disputes,  and  much  ill  blood,  will 
arise.  But  though  every  privilege  is  an  exemption  (in  the  case) 
from  the  ordinary  exercise  of  the  supreme  authority,  it  is  no  denial 
of  it.  The  claim  of  a  privilege  seems  rather,  ex  vi  termini™  to 
imply  a  superior  power.  For  to  talk  of  the  privileges  of  a  State, 
or  of  a  person,  who  has  no  superior,  is  hardly  any  better  than 
speaking  nonsense.  Now,  in  such  unfortunate  quarrels  among 
the  component  parts  of  a  great  political  union  of  communities,  I 
can  scarcely  conceive  anything  more  completely  imprudent  than 
for  the  head  of  the  empire  to  insist  that,  if  any  privilege  is  pleaded 
against  his  will,  or  his  acts,  his  whole  authority  is  denied  ;  instantly 
to  proclaim  rebellion,  to  beat  to  arms,  and  to  put  the  offending 
provinces  under  the  ban.  Will  not  this,  Sir,  very  soon  teach  the 

15  A  sentence  that  has  passed  into  the  literature  of  English-speaking  people. 

16  from  the  force  (or  meaning)  of  tlie  expression. 


468  EDMUND  BURKE. 

provinces  to  make  no  distinctions  on  their  part  ?  Will  it  not  teach 
them  that  the  Government,  against  which  a  claim  of  liberty  is  tan- 
tamount to  high  treason,  is  a  Government  to  which  submission  is 
equivalent  to  slavery  ?  It  may  not  always  be  quite  convenient  to 
impress  dependent  communities  with  such  an  idea. 

We  are  indeed,  in  all  disputes  with  the  Colonies,  by  the  neces- 
sity of  things,  the  judge.  It  is  true,  Sir.  But  I  confess  that  the 
character  of  judge  in  my  own  cause  is  a  thing  that  frightens  me. 
Instead  of  filling  me  with  pride,  I  am  exceedingly  humbled  by  it. 
I  cannot  proceed  with  a  stern,  assured,  judicial  confidence,  until  I 
find  myself  in  something  more  like  a  judicial  character.  I  must 
have  these  hesitations  as  long  as  I  am  compelled  to  recollect  that, 
in  my  little  reading  upon  such  contests  as  these,  the  sense  of  man- 
kind has,  at  least,  as  often  decided  against  the  superior  as  the  sub- 
ordinate power.  Sir,  let  me  add  too,  that  the  opinion  of  my 
having  some  abstract  right  in  my  favour  would  not  put  me  much 
at  my  ease  in  passing  sentence,  unless  I  could  be  sure  that  there 
were  no  rights  which,  in  their  exercise  under  certain  circumstances, 
were  not  the  most  odious  of  all  wrongs,  and  the  most  vexatious 
of  all  injustice.  Sir,  these  considerations  have  great  weight  with 
me,  when  I  find  things  so  circumstanced,  that  I  see  the  same 
party  at  once  a  civil  litigant  against  me  in  point  of  right ;  and  a 
culprit  before  me,  while  I  sit  as  a  criminal  judge  on  acts  of  his, 
whose  moral  quality  is  to  be  decided  upon  the  merits  of  that  very 
litigation.  Men  are  every  now  and  then  put,  by  the  complexity 
of  human  affairs,  into  strange  situations ;  but  justice  is  the  same, 
let  the  judge  be  in  what  situation  he  will. 

There  is,  Sir,  also  a  circumstance  which  convinces  me  that  this 
mode  of  criminal  proceeding  is  not  (at  least  in  the  present  stage 
of  our  contest)  altogether  expedient ;  which  is  nothing  less  than 
the  conduct  of  those  very  persons  who  have  seemed  to  adopt  that 
mode,  by  lately  declaring  a  rebellion  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  as 
they  had  formerly  addressed  to  have  traitors  brought  hither,  under 
an  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  trial.  For  though  rebellion  is 
declared,  it  is  not  proceeded  against  as  such  ;  nor  have  any  steps 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA,  469 

been  taken  towards  the  apprehension  or  conviction  of  any  indi- 
vidual offender,  either  on  our  late  or  our  former  Address ;  but 
modes  of  public  coercion  have  been  adopted,  and  such  as  have 
much  more  resemblance  to  a  sort  of  qualified  hostility  towards  an 
independent  power  than  the  punishment  of  rebellious  subjects. 
All  this  seems  rather  inconsistent ;  but  it  shows  how  difficult  it  is 
to  apply  these  juridical  ideas  to  our  present  case. 

In  this  situation,  let  us  seriously  and  coolly  ponder.  What  is  it 
we  have  got  by  all  our  menaces,  which  have  been  many  and  fero- 
cious ?  What  advantage  have  we  derived  from  the  penal  laws  we 
have  rightly  passed,  and  which,  for  the  time,  have  been  severe 
and  numerous?  What  advances  have  we  made  towards  our  object, 
by  the  sending  of  a  force  which,  by  land  and  sea,  is  no  contemp- 
tible strength  ?  Has  the  disorder  abated  ?  Nothing  less.  When 
I  see  things  in  this  situation,  after  such  confident  hopes,  bold 
promises,  and  active  exertions,  I  cannot  for  my  life  avoid  a  sus- 
picion that  the  plan  itself  is  not  correctly  right. 

If  then  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this  spirit  of  American 
liberty  be,  for  the  greater  part,  or  rather  entirely,  impracticable ; 
if  the  ideas  of  criminal  process  be  inapplicable,  or  if  applicable, 
are  in  the  highest  degree  inexpedient ;  what  way  yet  remains  ? 
No  way  is  open  but  the  third  and  last  —  to  comply  with  the  Amer- 
ican spirit  as  necessary ;  or,  if  you  please,  to  submit  to  it  as  a 
necessary  evil. 

If  we  adopt  this  mode  ;  if  we  mean  to  conciliate  and  concede  ; 
let  us  see  of  what  nature  the  concession  ought  to  be  :  to  ascertain 
the  nature  of  our  concession  we  must  look  at  their  complaint. 
The  Colonies  complain  that  they  have  not  the  characteristic  mark 
and  seal  of  British  freedom.  They  complain  that  they  are  taxed 
in  a  Parliament  in  which  they  are  not  represented.  If  you  mean 
to  satisfy  them  at  all,  you  must  satisfy  them  with  regard  to  this 
complaint.  If  you  mean  to  please  any  people,  you  must  give 
them  the  boon  which  they  ask  ;  not  what  you  may  think  better  for 
them,  but  of  a  kind  totally  different.  Such  an  act  may  be  a  wise 
regulation,  but  it  is  no  concession ;  whereas  our  present  theme  is 
the  mode  of  giving  satisfaction. 


470  EDMUND  BURKE. 

Sir,  I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am  resolved  this  day  to 
have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  question  of  the  right  of  taxa- 
tion. Some  gentlemen  startle  —  but  it  is  true ;  I  put  it  totally 
out  of  the  question.  It  is  less  than  nothing  in  my  consideration. 
I  do  not  indeed  wonder,  nor  will  you,  Sir,  that  gentlemen  of 
profound  learning  are  fond  of  displaying  it  on  this  profound 
subject.  But  my  consideration  is  narrow,  confined,  and  wholly 
limited  to  the  policy  of  the  question.  I  do  not  examine  whether 
the  giving  away  a  man's  money  be  a  power  excepted  and  reserved 
out  of  the  general  trust  of  government ;  and  how  far  all  man- 
kind, in  all  forms  of  polity,  are  entitled  to  an  exercise  of  that 
right  by  the  charter  of  Nature.  Or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  a 
right  of  taxation  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  general  principle 
of  legislation,  and  inseparable  from  the  ordinary  supreme  power. 
These  are  deep  questions,  where  great  names  militate  against  each 
other ;  where  reason  is  perplexed ;  and  an  appeal  to  authorities 
only  thickens  the  confusion.  For  high  and  reverend  authorities 
lift  up  their  heads  on  both  sides ;  and  there  is  no  sure  footing  in 
the  middle.  This  point  "is  the  great  Serbonian  bog,  Betwixt 
Damiata  and  Mount  Casius  old,  Where  armies  whole  have  sunk."  17 
I  do  not  intend  to  be  overwhelmed  in  that  bog,  though  in  such 
respectable  company.  The  question  with  me  is,  not  whether  you 
have  a  right  to  render  your  people  miserable,  but  whether  it  is  not 
your  interest  to  make  them  happy.  It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells 
me  I  may  do,  but  what  humanity,  reason,  and  justice  tell  me  I 
ought  to  do.  Is  a  politic  act  the  worse  for  being  a  generous  one  ? 
Is  no  concession  proper,  but  that  which  is  made  from  your  want 
of  right  to  keep  what  you  grant  ?  Or  does  it  lessen  the  grace  or 
dignity  of  relaxing  in  the  exercise  of  an  odious  claim,  because  you 
have  your  evidence-room  full  of  titles,  and  your  magazines  stuffed 
with  arms  to  enforce  them  ?  What  signify  all  those  titles  and  all 
those  arms  ?  Of  what  avail  are  they,  when  the  reason  of  the  thing 
tells  me  that  the  assertion  of  my  title  is  the  loss  of  my  suit ;  and 
that  I  could  do  nothing  but  wound  myself  by  the  use  of  my  own 

weapons  ? 

17  Paradise  Lost,  II.  592. 


CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA.  471 

Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute  necessity  of 
keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  empire  by  a  unity  of  spirit,  though 
in  a  diversity  of  operations,  that,  if  I  were  sure  the  Colonists  had, 
at  their  leaving  this  country,  sealed  a  regular  compact  of  servitude  ; 
that  they  had  solemnly  abjured  all  the  rights  of  citizens  ;  that  they 
had  made  a  vow  to  renounce  all  ideas  of  liberty  for  them  and 
their  posterity  to  all  generations ;  yet  I  should  hold  myself  obliged 
to  conform  to  the  temper  I  found  universally  prevalent  in  my  own 
day,  and  to  govern  two  million  of  men,  impatient  of  servitude,  on 
the  principles  of  freedom..  I  am  not  determining  a  point  of  law ; 
I  am  restoring  tranquillity ;  and  the  general  character  and  situa- 
tion of  a  people  must  determine  what  sort  of  government  is  fitted 
for  them.  That  point  nothing  else  can  or  ought  to  determine. 

My  idea,  therefore,  without  considering  whether  we  yield  as 
matter  of  right,  or  grant  as  matter  of  favour,  is  to  admit  the  peo- 
ple of  our  Colonies  into  an  interest  in  the  Constitution  ;  and,  by 
recording  that  admission  in  the  Journals  of  Parliament,  to  give 
them  as  strong  an  assurance  as  the  nature  of  the  thing  will  admit, 
that  we  mean  for  ever  to  adhere  to  that  solemn  declaration  of 
systematic  indulgence. 

Some  years  ago,  the  repeal  of  a  Revenue  Act,  upon  its  under- 
stood principle,  might  have  served  to  show  that  we  intended  an 
unconditional  abatement  of  the  exercise  of  a  taxing  power.  Such 
a  measure  was  then  sufficient  to  remove  all  suspicion,  and  to  give 
perfect  content.  But  unfortunate  events,  since  that  time,  may 
make  something  further  necessary ;  and  not  more  necessary  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  Colonies,  than  for  the  dignity  and  con- 
sistency of  our  own  future  proceedings. 


XXIII. 

EDWARD    GIBBON. 

(1737-17940 

MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND   WRITINGS. 

[Written  in  1788.] 

A  TRAVELLER,  who  visits  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  is  surprised  and 
edified  by  the  apparent  order  and  tranquillity  that  prevail  in  the 
seats  of  the  English  muses.  In  the  most  celebrated  universities 
of  Holland,  Germany,  and  Italy,  the  students,  who  swarm  from 
different  countries,  are  loosely  dispersed  in  private  lodgings  at  the 
houses  of  the  burghers :  they  dress  according  to  their  fancy  and 
fortune  ;  and  in  the  intemperate  quarrels  of  youth  and  wine,  their 
swords,  though  less  frequently  than  of  old,  are  sometimes  stained 
with  each  other's  blood.  The  use  of  arms  is  banished  from  our 
English  universities;  the  uniform  habit  of  the  academics,  the 
square  cap,  and  black  gown,  is  adapted  to  the  civil  and  even 
clerical  profession  :  and  from  the  doctor  in  divinity  to  the  under- 
graduate, the  degrees  of  learning  and  age  are  externally  distin- 
guished. Instead  of  being  scattered  in  a  town,  the  students  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  united  in  colleges ;  their  maintenance 
is  provided  at  their  own  expense,  or  that  of  the  founders ;  and  the 
stated  hours  of  the  hall  and  chapel  represent  the  discipline  of  a 
regular,  and,  as  it  were,  a  religious  community.  The  eyes  of  the 
traveller  are  attracted  by  the  size  or  beauty  of  the  public  edifices ; 
and  the  principal  colleges  appear  to  be  so  many  palaces,  which  a 
liberal  nation  has  erected  and  endowed  for  the  habitation  of 
science.  My  own  introduction  to  the  university  of  Oxford  forms 
472 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  473 

a  new  aera  in  my  life ;  and  at  the  distance  of  forty  years  I  still 
remember  my  first  emotions  of  surprise  and  satisfaction.  In  my 
fifteenth  year  I  felt  myself  suddenly  raised  from  a  boy  to  a  man ; 
the  persons  whom  I  respected  as  my  superiors  in  age  and  aca- 
demical rank,  entertained  me  with  every  mark  of  attention  and 
civility ;  and  my  vanity  was  flattered  by  the  velvet  cap  and  silk 
gown,  which  distinguish  a  gentleman  commoner  from  a  plebeian 
student.  A  decent  allowance,  more  money  than  a  schoolboy  had 
ever  seen,  was  at  my  own  disposal ;  and  I  might  command,  among 
the  tradesmen  of  Oxford,  an  indefinite  and  dangerous  latitude  of 
credit.  A  key  was  delivered  into  my  hands,  which  gave  me  the  free 
use  of  a  numerous  and  learned  library ;  my  apartment  consisted 
of  three  elegant  and  well- furnished  rooms  in  the  new  building,  a 
stately  pile,  of  Magdalen  College ;  and  the  adjacent  walks,  had 
they  been  frequented  by  Plato's  disciples,  might  have  been  com- 
pared to  the  Attic  shade  on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus.  Such  was 
the  fair  prospect  of  my  entrance  (April  3,  1752)  into  the  univer- 
sity of  Oxford. 

A  venerable  prelate,  whose  taste  and  erudition  must  reflect 
honour  on  the  society  in  which  they  were  formed,  has  drawn  a 
very  interesting  picture  of  his  academical  life.  —  "I  was  educated 
(says  Bishop  Lowth)  in  the  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD.  I  enjoyed  all 
the  advantages,  both  public  and  private,  which  that  famous  seat 
of  learning  so  largely  affords.  I  spent  many  years  in  that  illus- 
trious society,  in  a  well-regulated  course  of  useful  discipline  and 
studies,  and  in  the  agreeable  and  improving  commerce l  of  gentle- 
men and  of  scholars  ,*  in  a  society  where  emulation  without  envy, 
ambition  without  jealousy,  contention  without  animosity,  incited 
industry,  and  awakened  genius ;  where  a  liberal  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge, and  a  genuine  freedom  of  thought,  were  raised,  encouraged, 
and  pushed  forward  by  example,  by  commendation,  and  by  au- 
thority. I  breathed  the  same  atmosphere  that  the  HOOKERS,  the 
CHILLINGWORTHS,  and  the  LOCKES  had  breathed  before ;  whose 
benevolence  and  humanity  were  as  extensive  as  their  vast  genius 

1  intercourse. 


474  EDWARD   GIBBON. 

and  comprehensive  knowledge ;  who  always  treated  their  adver- 
saries with  civility  and  respect ;  who  made  candour,  moderation, 
and  liberal  judgment  as  much  the  rule  and  law  as  the  subject  of 
their  discourse.  And  do  you  reproach  me  with  my  education  in 
this  place,  and  with  my  relation  to  this  most  respectable  body, 
which  I  shall  always  esteem  my  greatest  advantage  and  my  high- 
est honour?"  I  transcribe  with  pleasure  this  eloquent  passage, 
without  examining  what  benefits  or  what  rewards  were  derived  by 
Hooker,  or  Chillingworth,  or  Locke,  from  their  academical  insti- 
tution; without  inquiring,  whether  in  this  angry  controversy  the 
spirit  of  Lowth  himself  is  purified  from  the  intolerant  zeal,  which 
Warburton  had  ascribed  to  the  genius  of  the  place.  It  may  in- 
deed be  observed,  that  the  atmosphere  of  Oxford  did  not  agree 
with  Mr.  Locke's  constitution;  and  that  the  philosopher  justly 
despised  the  academical  bigots,  who  expelled  his  person  and  con- 
demned his  principles.  The  expression  of  gratitude  is  a  virtue 
and  a  pleasure  :  a  liberal  mind  will  delight  to  cherish  and  cele- 
brate the  memory  of  its  parents ;  and  the  teachers  of  science  are 
the  parents  of  the  mind.  I  applaud  the  filial  piety,  which  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  imitate  ;  since  I  must  not  confess  an  imagi- 
nary debt,  to  assume  the  merit  of  a  just  or  generous  retribution. 
To  the  university  of  Oxford  /  acknowledge  no  obligation  ;  and  she 
will  as  cheerfully  renounce  me  for  a  son,  as  I  am  willing  to  dis- 
claim her  for  a  mother.  I  spent  fourteen  months  at  Magdalen 
College ;  they  proved  the  fourteen  months  the  most  idle  and  un- 
profitable of  my  whole  life  :  the  reader  will  pronounce  between 
the  school  and  the  scholar;  but  I  cannot 'affect  to  believe  that 
Nature  had  disqualified  me  for  all  literary  pursuits.  The  spacious 
and  ready  excuse  of  my  tender  age,  imperfect  preparation,  and 
hasty  departure,  may  doubtless  be  alleged ;  nor  do  I  wish  to  de- 
fraud such  excuses  of  their  proper  weight.  Yet  in  my  sixteenth 
year  I  was  not  devoid  of  capacity  or  application ;  even  my  child- 
ish reading  had  displayed  an  early  though  blind  propensity  for 
books ;  and  the  shallow  flood  might  have  been  taught  to  flow  in 
a  deep  channel  and  a  clear  stream.  In  the  discipline  of  a  well- 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  475 

constituted  academy,  under  the  guidance  of  skilful  and  vigilant 
professors,  I  should  gradually  have  risen  from  translations  to  origi- 
nals, from  the  Latin  to  the  Greek  classics,  from  dead  languages  to 
living  science  :  my  hours  would  have  been  occupied  by  useful  and 
agreeable  studies,  the  wanderings  of  fancy  would  have  been  re- 
strained, and  I  should  have  escaped  the  temptations  of  idleness, 
which  finally  precipitated  my  departure  from  Oxford. 

Perhaps  in  a  separate  annotation  I  may  coolly  examine  the 
fabulous  and  real  antiquities  of  our  sister  universities,  a  question 
which  has  kindled  such  fierce  and  foolish  disputes  among  their 
fanatic  sons.  In  the  meanwhile  it  will  be  acknowledged  that 
these  venerable  bodies  are  sufficiently  old  to  partake  of  all  the 
prejudices  and  infirmities  of  age.  The  schools  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  were  founded  in  a  dark  age  of  false  and  barbarous 
science ;  and  they  are  still  tainted  with  the  vices  of  their  origin. 
Their  primitive  discipline  was  adapted  to  the  education  of  priests 
and  monks ;  and  the  government  still  remains  in  the  hands  of  the 
clergy,  an  order  of  men  whose  manners  are  remote  from  the  pres- 
ent world,  and  whose  eyes  are  dazzled  by  the  light  of  philosophy. 
The  legal  incorporation  of  these  societies  by  the  charters  of  popes 
and  kings  had  given  them  a  monopoly  of  the  public  instruction ; 
and  the  spirit  of  monopolists  is  narrow,  lazy,  and  oppressive ; 
their  work  is  more  costly  and  less  productive  than  that  of  inde- 
pendent artists ;  and  the  new  improvements  so  eagerly  grasped 
by  the  competition  of  freedom,  are  admitted  with  slow  and  sullen 
reluctance  in  those  proud  corporations,  above  the  fear  of  a  rival, 
and  below  the  confession  of  an  error.  We  may  scarcely  hope  that 
any  reformation  will  be  a  voluntary  act ;  and  so  deeply  are  they 
rooted  in  law  and  prejudice,  that  even  the  omnipotence  of  parlia- 
ment would  shrink  from  an  inquiry  into  the  state  and  abuses  of 
the  two  universities.2 

The  use  of  academical  degrees,  as  old  as  the  thirteenth  century, 

2  We  must  remember  that  Gibbon  was  writing  in  1 788.  Parliament  has 
appointed  University  Commissions,  and  there  have  been  many  reforms  at  these 
great  centres  of  learning. 


476  EDWARD   GIBBON. 

is  visibly  borrowed  from  the  mechanic  corporations ;  in  which  an 
apprentice,  after  serving  his  time,  obtains  a  testimonial  of  his  skill, 
and  a  licence  to  practise  his  trade  and  mystery.3  It  is  not  my 
design  to  depreciate  those  honours,  which  could  never  gratify  or 
disappoint  my  ambition ;  and  I  should  applaud  the  institution,  if 
the  degrees  of  bachelor  or  licentiate  were  bestowed  as  the  reward 
of  manly  and  successful  study :  if  the  name  and  rank  of  doctor  or 
master  were  strictly  reserved  for  the  professors  of  science,  who 
have  approved  their  title  to  the  public  esteem. 

In  all  the  universities  of  Europe,  excepting  our  own,  the  lan- 
guages and  sciences  are  distributed  among  a  numerous  list  of 
effective  professors  :  the  students,  according  to  their  taste,  their 
calling,  and  their  diligence,  apply  themselves  to  the  proper  mas- 
ters ;  and  in  the  annual  repetition  of  public  and  private  lectures, 
these  masters  are  assiduously  employed.  Our  curiosity  may  in- 
quire what  number  of  professors  has  been  instituted  at  Oxford  ? 
(for  I  shall  now  confine  myself  to  my  own  university ;)  by  whom 
are  they  appointed,  and  what  may  be  the  probable  chances  of 
merit  or  incapacity ;  how  many  are  stationed  to  the  three  facul- 
ties, and  how  many  are  left  for  the  liberal  arts  ?  what  is  the  form, 
and  what  the  substance,  of  their  lessons  ?  But  all  these  questions 
are  silenced  by  one  short  and  singular  answer,  "  That  in  the  uni- 
versity of  Oxford,  the  greater  part  of  the  public  professors  have 
for  these  many  years  given  up  altogether  even  the  pretence  of 
teaching."  Incredible  as  the  fact  may  appear,  I  must  rest  my 
belief  on  the  positive  and  impartial  evidence  of  a  master  of  moral 
and  political  wisdom,  who  had  himself  resided  at  Oxford.  Dr. 
Adam  Smith  assigns  as  the  cause  of  their  indolence,  that,  instead 
of  being  paid  by  voluntary  contributions,  which  would  urge  them 
to  increase  the  number,  and  to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  their 
pupils,  the  Oxford  professors  are  secure  in  the  enjoyment  of  a 
fixed  stipend,  without  the  necessity  of  labour,  or  the  apprehension 
of  controul.  It  has  indeed  been  observed,  nor  is  the  observation 
absurd,  that  excepting  in  experimental  sciences,  which  demand  a 

8  calling,  or  occupation. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  477 

costly  apparatus  and  a  dexterous  hand,  the  many  valuable  trea- 
tises that  have  been  published  on  every  subject  of  learning,  may 
now  supersede  the  ancient  mode  of  oral  instruction.  Were  this 
principle  true  in  its  utmost  latitude,  I  should  only  infer  that  the 
offices  and  salaries,  which  are  become  useless,  ought  without  delay 
to  be  abolished.  But  there  still  remains  a  material  difference 
between  a  book  and  a  professor ;  the  hour  of  the  lecture  enforces 
attendance ;  attention  is  fixed  by  the  presence,  the  voice,  and  the 
occasional  questions  of  the  teacher ;  the  most  idle  will  carry  some- 
thing away ;  and  the  more  diligent  will  compare  the  instructions, 
which  they  have  heard  in  the  school,  with  the  volumes,  which  they 
peruse  in  their  chamber.  The  advice  of  a  skilful  professor  will 
adapt  a  course  of  reading  to  every  mind  and  every  situation ;  his 
authority  will  discover,  admonish,  and  at  last  chastise  the  negli- 
gence of  his  disciples ;  and  his  vigilant  inquiries  will  ascertain  the 
steps  of  their  literary  progress.  Whatever  science  he  professes  he 
may  illustrate  in  a  series  of  discourses,  composed  in  the  leisure  of 
his  closet,  pronounced  on  public  occasions,  and  finally  delivered 
to  the  press.  I  observe  with  pleasure,  that  in  the  university  of 
Oxford  Dr.  Lowth,  with  equal  eloquence  and  erudition,  has  exe- 
cuted this  task  in  his  incomparable  Preelections  on  the  Poetry  of 
the  Hebrews. 

The  college  of  St.  Mary  Magdalen  was  founded  in  the  fifteenth 
century  by  Wainfleet,  bishop  of  Winchester ;  and  now  consists  of 
a  president,  forty  fellows,  and  a  number  of  inferior  students.  It  is 
esteemed  one  of  the  largest  and  most  wealthy  of  our  academical 
corporations,  which  may  be  compared  to  the  Benedictine  abbeys 
of  Catholic  countries ;  and  I  have  loosely  heard  that  the  estates 
belonging  to  Magdalen  College,  which  are  leased  by  those  indul- 
gent landlords  at  small  quit-rents  and  occasional  fines,  might  be 
raised,  in  the  hands  of  private  avarice,  to  an  annual  revenue  of 
nearly  thirty  thousand  pounds.  Our  colleges  are  supposed  to  be 
schools  of  science,  as  well  as  of  education  ;  nor  is  it  unreasonable 
to  expect  that  a  body  of  literary  men,  devoted  to  a  life  of  celibacy, 
exempt  from  the  care  of  their  own  subsistence,  and  amply  pro- 


478  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

vided  with  books,  should  devote  their  leisure  to  the  prosecution  of 
study,  and  that  some  effects  of  their  studies  should  be  manifested 
to  the  world.  The  shelves  of  their  library  groan  under  the  weight 
of  the  Benedictine  folios,  of  the  editions  of  the  fathers,  and  the 
collections  of  the  middle  ages,  which  have  issued  from  the  single 
abbey  of  St.  Germain  de  Pr£z  at  Paris.  A  composition  of  genius 
must  be  the  offspring  of  one  mind ;  but  such  works  of  industry, 
as  may  be  djvided  among  many  hands,  and  must  be  continued 
during  many  years,  are  the  peculiar  province  of  a  laborious  com- 
munity. If  I  inquire  into  the  manufactures  of  the  monks  of  Mag- 
dalen, if  I  extend  the  inquiry  to  the  other  colleges  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  a  silent  blush,  or  a  scornful  frown,  will  be  the  only 
reply.  The  fellows  or  monks  of  my  time  were  decent  easy  men, 
who  supinely  enjoyed  the  gifts  of  the  founder ;  their  days  were 
filled  by  a  series  of  uniform  employments ;  the  chapel  and  the 
hall,  the  coffee-house  and  the  common  room,  till  they  retired, 
weary  and  well  satisfied,  to  a  long  slumber.  From  the  toil  of 
reading,  or  thinking,  or  writing,  they  had  absolved  their  con- 
science ;  and  the  first  shoots  of  learning  and  ingenuity  withered 
on  the  ground,  without  yielding  any  fruits  to  the  owners  or  the 
public.  As  a  gentleman  commoner,  I  was  admitted  to  the  soci- 
ety of  the  fellows,  and  fondly  expected  that  some  questions  of 
literature  would  be  the  amusing  and  instructive  topics  of  their 
discourse.  Their  conversation  stagnated  in  a  round  of  college 
business,  Tory  politics,  personal  anecdotes,  and  private  scandal : 
their  dull  and  deep  potations  excused  the  brisk  intemperance  of 
youth ;  and  their  constitutional  toasts  were  not  expressive  of  the 
most  lively  loyalty  for  the  house  of  Hanover.  A  general  election 
was  now  approaching :  the  great  Oxfordshire  contest  already 
blazed  with  all  the  malevolence  of  party-zeal.  Magdalen  College 
was  devoutly  attached  to  the  old  interest !  and  the  names  of 
Wenman  and  Dashwood  were  more  frequently  pronounced,  than 
those  of  Cicero  and  Chrysostom.  The  example  of  the  senior 
fellows  could  not  inspire  the  under-graduates  with  a  liberal  spirit 
pr  studious  emulation ;  and  I  cannot  describe,  as  I  never  knew, 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  479 

the  discipline  of  college.  Some  duties  may  possibly  have  been 
imposed  on  the  poor  scholars,  whose  ambition  aspired  to  the 
peaceful  honours  of  a  fellowship  (ascribi  quietis  ordinibus  .  .  . 
Deorum);*  but  no  independent  members  were  admitted  below 
the  rank  of  a  gentleman  commoner,  and  our  velvet  cap  was  the 
cap  of  liberty.  A  tradition  prevailed  that  some  of  our  predeces- 
sors had  spoken  Latin  declamations  in  the  hall;  but  of  this 
ancient  custom  no  vestige  remained :  the  obvious  methods  of 
public  exercises  and  examinations  were  totally  unknown ;  and  I 
have  never  heard  that  either  the  president  or  the  society  inter- 
fered in  the  private  economy  of  the  tutors  and  their  pupils. 

The  silence  of  the  Oxford  professors,  which  deprives  the  youth 
of  public  instruction,  is  imperfectly  supplied  by  the  tutors,  as  they 
are  styled,  of  the  several  colleges.  Instead  of  confining  them- 
selves to  a  single  science,  which  had  satisfied  the  ambition  of 
Burman  or  Bernoulli,  they  teach,  or  promise  to  teach,  either  his- 
tory or  mathematics,  or  ancient  literature,  or  moral  philosophy ; 
and  as  it  is  possible  that  they  may  be  defective  in  all,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  of  some  they  will  be  ignorant.  They  are  paid, 
indeed,  by  voluntary  contributions;  but  their  appointment  de- 
pends on  the  head  of  the  house  :  their  diligence  is  voluntary,  and 
will  consequently  be  languid,  while  the  pupils  themselves,  or  their 
parents,  are  not  indulged  in  the  liberty  of  choice  or  change.  The 
first  tutor  into  whose  hands  I  was  resigned  appears  to  have  been 
one  of  the  best  of  the  tribe :  Dr.  Waldegrave  was  a  learned  and 
pious  man,  of  a  mild  disposition,  strict  morals,  and  abstemious  life, 
who  seldom  mingled  in  the  politics  or  the  jollity  of  the  college. 
But  his  knowledge  of  the  world  was  confined  to  the  university ; 
his  learning  was  of  the  last,  rather  than  the  present  age ;  his  tem- 
per was  indolent ;  his  faculties,  which  were  not  of  the  first  rate, 
had  been  relaxed  by  the  climate,  and  he  was  satisfied,  like  his 
fellows,  with  the  slight  and  superficial  discharge  of  an  important 
trust.  As  soon  as  my  tutor  had  sounded  the  insufficiency  of  his 

*  to  be  enrolled  in  the  quiet  orders  of  the  gods.  —  HORACE,  Odes,  III. 
3.  35-6- 


480  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

pupil  in  school-learning,  he  proposed  that  we  should  read  every 
morning  from  ten  to  eleven  the  comedies  of  Terence.  The  sum 
of  my  improvement  in  the  university  of  Oxford  is  confined  to 
three  or  four  Latin  plays  ;  and  even  the  study  of  an  elegant  classic, 
which  might  have  been  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of  ancient  and 
modern  theatres,  was  reduced  to  a  dry  and  literal  interpretation  of 
the  author's  text.  During  the  first  weeks  I  constantly  attended 
these  lessons  in  my  tutor's  room ;  but  as  they  appeared  equally 
devoid  of  profit  and  pleasure  I  was  once  tempted  to  try  the  exper- 
iment of  a  formal  apology.  The  apology  Avas  accepted  with  a 
smile.  I  repeated  the  offence  with  less  ceremony;  the  excuse 
was  admitted  with  the  same  indulgence  :  the  slightest  motive  of 
laziness  or  indisposition,  the  most  trifling  avocation  at  home  or 
abroad,  was  allowed  as  a  worthy  impediment ;  nor  did  my  tutor 
appear  conscious  of  my  absence  or  neglect.  Had  the  hour  of  lec- 
ture been  constantly  filled,  a  single  hour  was  a  small  portion  of 
my  academic  leisure.  No  plan  of  study  was  recommended  for 
my  use  ;  no  exercises  were  prescribed  for  his  inspection ;  and,  at 
the  most  precious  season  of  youth,  whole  days  and  weeks  were 
suffered  to  elapse  without  labour  or  amusement,  without  advice  or 
account.  I  should  have  listened  to  the  voice  of  reason  and  of  my 
tutor;  his  mild  behaviour  had  gained  my  confidence.  I  pre- 
ferred his  society  to  that  of  the  younger  students ;  and  in  our 
evening  walks  to  the  top  of  Heddington-hill,  we  freely  conversed 
on  a  variety  of  subjects.  Since  the  days  of  Pocock  and  Hyde, 
Oriental  learning  has  always  been  the  pride  of  Oxford,  and  I  once 
expressed  an  inclination  to  study  Arabic.  His  prudence  discour- 
aged this  childish  fancy ;  but  he  neglected  the  fair  occasion  of 
directing  the  ardour  of  a  curious  mind.  During  my  absence  in 
the  summer  vacation,  Dr.  Waldegrave  accepted  a  college  living  at 
Washington  in  Sussex,  and  on  my  return  I  no  longer  found  him  at 
Oxford.  From  that  time  I  have  lost  sight  of  my  first  tutor ;  but 
at  the  end  of  thirty  years  (1781)  he  was  still  alive  ;  and  the  prac- 
tice of  exercise  and  temperance  had  entitled  him  to  a  healthy 
old  age. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  481 

The  long  recess  between  the  Trinity  and  Michaelmas  terms 
empties  the  colleges  of  Oxford,  as  well  as  the  courts  of  Westmin- 
ster. I  spent,  at  my  father's  house  at  Beriton  in  Hampshire,  the 
two  months  of  August  and  September.  It  is  whimsical  enough, 
that  as  soon  as  I  left  Magdalen  College,  my  taste  for  books  began 
to  revive ;  but  it  was  the  same  blind  and  boyish  taste  for  the 
pursuit  of  exotic  history.  Unprovided  with  original  learning, 
unformed  in  the  habits  of  thinking,  unskilled  in  the  arts  of  com- 
position, I  resolved  —  to  write  a  book.  The  title  of  this  first 
Essay,  The  Age  of  Sesostris,  was  perhaps  suggested  by  Voltaire's 
Age  of  Lewis  XIV.  which  was  new  and  popular ;  but  my  sole 
object  was  to  investigate  the  probable  date  of  the  life  and  reign  of 
the  conqueror  of  Asia.  I  was  then  enamoured  of  Sir  John  Mar- 
sham's  Canon  Chronicus,  an  elaborate  work,  of  whose  merits  and 
defects  I  was  not  yet  qualified  to  judge.  According  to  his  spe- 
cious, though  narrow  plan,  I  settled  my  hero  about  the  time  of 
Solomon,  in  the  tenth  century  before  the  Christian  era.  It  was 
therefore  incumbent  on  me,  unless  I  would  adopt  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton's shorter  chronology,  to  remove  a  formidable  objection ;  and 
my  solution,  for  a  youth  of  fifteen,  is  not  devoid  of  ingenuity.  In 
his  version  of  the  Sacred  Books,  Manetho  the  high  priest  has  iden- 
tified Sethosis,  or  Sesostris,  with  the  elder  brother  of  Danaus,  who 
landed  in  Greece,  according  to  the  Parian  Marble,  fifteen  hundred 
and  ten  years  before  Christ.  But  in  my  supposition  the  high 
priest  is  guilty  of  a  voluntary  error ;  flattery  is  the  prolific  parent 
of  falsehood.  Manetho's  History  of  Egypt  is  dedicated  to  Ptol- 
emy Philadelphus,  who  derived  a  fabulous  or  illegitimate  pedigree 
from  the  Macedonian  kings  of  the  race  of  Hercules.  Danaus  is 
the  ancestor  of  Hercules  ;  and  after  the  failure  of  the  elder  branch, 
his  descendants,  the  Ptolemies,  are  the  sole  representatives  of  the 
royal  family,  and  may  claim  by  inheritance  the  kingdom  which 
they  hold  by  conquest.  Such  were  my  juvenile  discoveries  ;  at  a 
riper  age  I  no  longer  presume  to  connect  the  Greek,  the  Jewish, 
and  the  Egyptian  antiquities,  which  are  lost  in'  a  distant  cloud. 
Nor  is  this  the  only  instance  in  which  the  belief  and  knowledge 


482  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

of  the  child  are  superseded  by  the  more  rational  ignorance  of  the 
man.  During  my  stay  at  Beriton,  my  infant-labour  was  diligently 
prosecuted,  without  much  interruption  from  company  or  country 
diversions ;  and  I  already  heard  the  music  of  public  applause. 
The  discovery  of  my  own  weakness  was  the  first  symptom  of  taste. 
On  my  return  to  Oxford,  the  Age  of  Sesostris  was  wisely  relin- 
quished; but  the  imperfect  sheets  remained  twenty  years  at  the 
bottom  of  a  drawer,  till,  in  a  general  clearance  of  papers  (Nov., 
1772,)  they  were  committed  to  the  flames. 

After  the  departure  of  Dr.  Waldegrave,  I  was  transferred,  with 
his  other  pupils,  to  his  academical  heir,  whose  literary  character 
did  not  command  the  respect  of  the  college.  Dr. well  re- 
membered that  he  had  a  salary  to  receive,  and  only  forgot  that  he 
had  a  duty  to  perform.  Instead  of  guiding  the  studies,  and  watch- 
ing over  the  behaviour  of  his  disciple,  I  was  never  summoned  to 
attend  even  the  ceremony  of  a  lecture ;  and,  excepting  one  vol- 
untary visit  to  his  rooms,  during  the  eight  months  of  his  titular 
office,  the  tutor  and  pupil  lived  in  the  same  college  as  strangers  to 
each  other.  The  want  of  experience,  of  advice,  and  of  occupa- 
tion, soon  betrayed  me  into  some  improprieties  of  conduct,  ill- 
chosen  company,  late  hours,  and  inconsiderate  expense.  My 
growing  debts  might  be  secret ;  but  my  frequent  absence  was  vis- 
ible and  scandalous  :  and  a  tour  to  Bath,  a  visit  into  Buckingham- 
shire, and  four  excursions  to  London  in  the  same  winter,  were 
costly  and  dangerous  frolics.  They  were,  indeed,  without  a  mean- 
ing, as  without  an  excuse.  The  irksomeness  of  a  cloistered  life 
repeatedly  tempted  me  to  wander;  but  my  chief  pleasure  was 
that  of  travelling ;  and  I  was  too  young  and  bashful  to  enjoy,  like 
a  Manly  Oxonian  in  Town,  the  pleasures  of  London.  In  all  these 
excursions  I  eloped  from  Oxford ;  I  returned  to  college ;  in  a  few 
days  I  eloped  again,  as  if  I  had  been  an  independent  stranger  in 
a  hired  lodging,  without  once  hearing  the  voice  of  admonition, 
without  once  feeling  the  hand  of  controul.  Yet  my  time  was  lost, 
my  expenses  were  multiplied,  my  behaviour  abroad  was  unknown ; 
folly  as  well  as  vice  should  have  awakened  the  attention  of  my 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  483 

superiors,  and  my  tender  years  would  have  justified  a  more  than 
ordinary  degree  of  restraint  and  discipline. 

It  might  at  least  be  expected  that  an  ecclesiastical  school 
should  inculcate  the  orthodox  principles  of  religion.  But  our 
venerable  mother  had  contrived  to  unite  the  opposite  extremes  of 
bigotry  and  indifference  :  an  heretic,  or  unbeliever,  was  a  monster 
in  her  eyes ;  but  she  was  always,  or  often,  or  sometimes,  remiss  in 
the  spiritual  education  of  her  own  children.  According  to  the 
statutes  of  the  university,  every  student,  before  he  is  matriculated, 
must  subscribe  his  assent  to  the  thirty-nine  articles  of  the  church 
of  England,  which  are  signed  by  more  than  read,  and  read  by 
more  than  believe  them.  My  insufficient  age  excused  me,  how- 
ever, from  the  immediate  performance  of  this  legal  ceremony ; 
and  the  vice-chancellor  directed  me  to  return,  as  soon  as  I  should 
have  accomplished  my  fifteenth  year ;  recommending  me,  in  the 
mean  while,  to  the  instruction  of  my  college.  My  college  forgot 
to  instruct :  I  forgot  to  return,  and  was  myself  forgotten  by  the 
first  magistrate  of  the  university.  Without  a  single  lecture,  either 
public  or  private,  either  Christian  or  protestant,  without  any  aca- 
demical subscription,  without  any  episcopal  confirmation,  I  was 
left  by  the  dim  light  of  my  catechism  to  grope  my  way  to  the 
chapel  and  communion-table,  where  I  was  admitted,  without  a 
question,  how  far,  or  by  what  means,  I  might  be  qualified  to  re- 
ceive the  sacrament.  Such  almost  incredible  neglect  was  produc- 
tive of  the  worst  mischiefs.  From  my  childhood  I  had  been  fond 
of  religious  disputation  :  my  poor  aunt  had  been  often  puzzled  by 
the  mysteries  which  she  strove  to  believe ;  nor  had  the  elastic 
spring  been  totally  broken  by  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere  of 
Oxford.  The  blind  activity  of  idleness  urged  me  to  advance  with- 
out armour  into  the  dangerous  mazes  of  controversy ;  and  at  the 
age  of  sixteen,  I  bewildered  myself  in  the  errors  of  the  church 
of  Rome.5 


6  Gibbon's  account  of  the  progress  of  his  conversion  is  omitted. 


484  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

After  carrying  me  to  Putney,  to  the  house  of  his  friend  Mr. 
Mallet,8  by  whose  philosophy  I  was  rather  scandalized  than  re- 
claimed, it  was  necessary  for  my  father  to  form  a  new  plan  of 
education,  and  to  devise  some  method  which,  if  possible,  might 
effect  the  cure  of  my  spiritual  malady.  After  much  debate  it  was 
determined,  from  the  advice  and  personal  experience  of  Mr.  Eliot 
(now  Lord  Eliot)  to  fix  me,  during  some  years,  at  Lausanne  in 
Switzerland.  Mr.  Frey,  a  Swiss  gentleman  of  Basil,  undertook  the 
conduct  of  the  journey  :  we  left  London  the  ipth  of  June,  crossed 
the  sea  from  Dover  to  Calais,  travelled  post  through  several 
provinces  of  France,  by  the  direct  road  of  St.  Quentin,  Rheims, 
Langres,  and  Besancon,  and  arrived  the  3Oth  of  June  at  Lausanne, 
where  I  was  immediately  settled  under  the  roof  and  tuition  of 
Mr.  Pavilliard,  a  Calvinist  minister. 

The  first  marks  of  my  father's  displeasure  rather  astonished  than 
afflicted  me  :  when  he  threatened  to  banish,  and  disown,  and  dis- 
inherit a  rebellious  son,  I  cherished  a  secret  hope  that  he  would 
not  be  able  or  willing  to  effect  his  menaces ;  and  the  pride  of 
conscience  encouraged  me  to  sustain  the  honourable  and  impor- 
tant part  which  I  was  now  acting.  My  spirits  were  raised  and 
kept  alive  by  the  rapid  motion  of  my  journey,  the  new  and  various 
scenes  of  the  Continent,  and  the  civility  of  Mr.  Frey,  a  man  of 
sense,  who  was  not  ignorant  of  books  or  the  world.  But  after  he 
had  resigned  me  into  Pavilliard's  hands,  and  I  was  fixed  in  my 
new  habitation,  I  had  leisure  to  contemplate  the  strange  and  mel- 
ancholy prospect  before  me.  My  first  complaint  arose  from  my 
ignorance  of  the  language.  In  my  childhood  I  had  once  studied 
the  French  grammar,  and  I  could  imperfectly  understand  the  easy 
prose  of  a  familiar  subject.  But  when  I  was  thus  suddenly  cast  on 
a  foreign  land,  I  found  myself  deprived  of  the  use  of  speech  and 
of  hearing ;  and,  during  some  weeks,  incapable  not  only  of  enjoy- 
ing the  pleasures  of  conversation,  but  even  of  asking  or  answering 

6  The  author  of  a  life  of  Bacon,  which  has  been  rated  above  its  value;  of 
some  forgotten  poems  and  plays;  and  of  the  pathetic  ballad  of  William  and 
Margaret.  —  GIBBON'S  Note. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  485 

a  question  in  the  common  intercourse  of  life.  To  a  home-bred 
Englishman  every  object,  every  custom  was  offensive ;  but  the 
native  of  any  country  might  have  been  disgusted  with  the  general 
aspect  of  his  lodging  and  entertainment.  I  had  now  exchanged 
my  elegant  apartment  in  Magdalen  College,  for  a  narrow,  gloomy 
street,  the  most  unfrequented  of  an  unhandsome  town,  for  an  old 
inconvenient  house,  and  for  a  small  chamber  ill-contrived  and  ill- 
furnished,  which,  on  the  approach  of  Winter,  instead  of  a  com- 
panionable fire,  must  be  warmed  by  the  dull  invisible  heat  of  a 
stove.  From  a  man  I  was  again  degraded  to  the  dependence  of 
a  schoolboy.  Mr.  Pavilliard  managed  my  expenses,  which  had 
been  reduced  to  a  diminutive  state :  I  received  a  small  monthly 
allowance  for  my  pocket-money ;  and  helpless  and  awkward  as  I 
have  ever  been,  I  no  longer  enjoyed  the  indispensable  comfort  of 
a  servant.  My  condition  seemed  as  destitute  of  hope,  as  it  was 
devoid  of  pleasure :  I  was  separated  for  an  indefinite,  which  ap- 
peared an  infinite,  term  from  my  native  country ;  and  I  had  lost 
all  connexion  with  my  catholic  friends.  I  have  since  reflected 
with  surprise,  that,  as  the  Romish  clergy  of  every  part  of  Europe 
maintain  a  close  correspondence  with  each  other,  they  never 
attempted,  by  letters  or  messages,  to  rescue  me  from  the  hands 
of  the  heretics,  or  at  least  to  confirm  my  zeal  and  constancy 
in  the  profession  of  the  faith.  Such  was  my  first  introduction  to 
Lausanne  ;  a  place  where  I  spent  nearly  five  years  with  pleasure 
and  profit,  which  I  afterwards  revisited  without  compulsion,  and 
which  I  have  finally  selected  as  the  most  grateful  retreat  for  the 
decline  of  my  life. 

But  it  is  the  peculiar  felicity  of  youth  that  the  most  unpleasing 
objects  and  events  seldom  make  a  deep  or  lasting  impression ;  it 
forgets  the  past,  enjoys  the  present,  and  anticipates  the  future.  At 
the  flexible  age  of  sixteen  I  soon  learned  to  endure,  and  gradually 
to  adopt,  the  new  forms  of  arbitrary  manners  :  the  real  hardships 
of  my  situation  were  alienated  by  time.  Had  I  been  sent  abroad 
in  a  more  splendid  style,  such  as  the  fortune  and  bounty  of  my 
father  might  have  supplied,  I  might  have  returned  home  with  the 


486  EDWARD   GIBBON. 

same  stock  of  language  and  science,  which  our  countrymen  usually 
import  from  the  Continent.  An  exile  and  a  prisoner  as  I  was, 
their  example  betrayed  me  into  some  irregularities  of  wine,  of 
play,  and  of  idle  excursions  :  but  I  soon  felt  the  impossibility  of 
associating  with  them  on  equal  terms ;  and  after  the  departure 
of  my  first  acquaintance,  I  held  a  cold  and  civil  correspondence 
with  their  successors.  This  seclusion  from  English  society  was 
attended  with  the  most  solid  benefits.  In  the  Pays  de  Vaud,  the 
French  language  is  used  with  less  imperfection  than  in  most  of 
the  distant  provinces  of  France  :  in  Pavilliard's  family,  necessity 
compelled  me  to  listen  and  to  speak ;  and  if  I  was  at  first  dis- 
heartened by  the  apparent  slowness,  in  a  few  months  I  was  aston- 
ished by  the  rapidity  of  my  progress.  My  pronunciation  was 
formed  by  the  constant  repetition  of  the  same  sounds ;  the  variety 
of  words  and  idioms,  the  rules  of  grammar,  and  distinctions  of 
genders,  were  impressed  in  my  memory :  ease  and  freedom  were 
obtained  by  practice ;  correctness  and  elegance  by  labour ;  and 
before  I  was  recalled  home,  French,  in  which  I  spontaneously 
thought,  was  more  familiar  than  English  to  my  ear,  my  tongue, 
and  my  pen.  The  first  effect  of  this  opening  knowledge  was  the 
revival  of  my  love  of  reading,  which  had  been  chilled  at  Oxford  ; 
and  I  soon  turned  over,  without  much  choice,  almost  all  the 
French  books  in  my  tutor's  library.  Even  these  amusements  were 
productive  of  real  advantage  :  my  taste  and  judgment  were  now 
somewhat  riper.  I  was  introduced  to  a  new  mode  of  style  and 
literature :  by  the  comparison  of  manners  and  opinions,  my  views 
were  enlarged,  my  prejudices  were  corrected,  and  a  copious  vol- 
untary abstract  of  the  Histoire  de  FEgHse  et  de  I  Empire,  by  le 
Sueur,  may  be  placed  in  a  middle  line  between  my  childish  and 
my  manly  studies.  As  soon  as  I  was  able  to  converse  with  the 
natives,  I  began  to  feel  some  satisfaction  in  their  company :  my 
awkward  timidity  was  polished  and  emboldened ;  and  I  fre- 
quented, for  the  first  time,  assemblies  of  men  and  women.  The 
acquaintance  of  the  Pavilliards  prepared  me  by  degrees  for  more 
elegant  society.  I  was  received  with  kindness  and  indulgence  in 


MEMOIRS    OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  487 

the  best  families  of  Lausanne ;  and  it  was  in  one  of  these  that  I 
formed  an  intimate  and  lasting  connection  with  Mr.  Deyverdun,  a 
young  man  of  an  amiable  temper  and  excellent  understanding. 
In  the  arts  of  fencing  and  dancing,  small  indeed  was  my  pro- 
ficiency ;  and  some  months  were  idly  wasted  in  the  riding-school. 
My  unfitness  to  bodily  exercise  reconciled  me  to  a  sedentary  life, 
and  the  horse,  the  favourite  of  my  countrymen,  never  contributed 
to  the  pleasures  of  my  youth. 

My  obligations  to  the  lessons  of  Mr.  Pavilliard,  gratitude  will 
not  suffer  me  to  forget :  he  was  endowed  with  a  clear  head  and  a 
warm  heart ;  his  innate  benevolence  had  assuaged  the  spirit  of  the 
church ;  he  was  rational,  because  he  was  moderate  :  in  the  course 
of  his  studies  he  had  acquired  a  just  though  superficial  knowledge 
of  most  branches  of  literature  ;  by  long  practice,  he  was  skilled  in 
the  arts  of  teaching ;  and  he  laboured  with  assiduous  patience  to 
know  the  character,  gain  the  affection,  and  open  the  mind  of  his 
English  pupil.  As  soon  as  we  began  to  understand  each  other,  he 
gently  led  me,  from  a  blind  and  undistinguishing  love  of  reading, 
into  the  path  of  instruction.  I  consented  with  pleasure  that  a 
portion  of  the  morning  hours  should  be  consecrated  to  a  plan  of 
modern  history  and  geography,  and  to  the  critical  perusal  of  the 
French  and  Latin  classics ;  and  at  each  step  I  felt  myself  invig- 
orated by  the  habits  of  application  and  method.  His  prudence 
repressed  and  dissembled  some  youthful  sallies ;  and  as  soon  as  I 
was  confirmed  in  the  habits  of  industry  and  temperance,  he  gave 
the  reins  into  my  own  hands.  His  favourable  report  of  my  be- 
haviour and  progress  gradually  obtained  some  latitude  of  action 
and  expense ;  and  he  wished  to  alleviate  the  hardships  of  my 
lodging  and  entertainment.  The  principles  of  philosophy  were 
associated  with  the  examples  of  taste  ;  and  by  a  singular  chance, 
the  book,  as  well  as  the  man,  which  contributed  the  most  effect- 
ually to  my  education,  has  a  stronger  claim  on  my  gratitude  than 
on  my  admiration.  Mr.  De  Crousaz,  the  adversary  of  Bayle  and 
Pope,  is  not  distinguished  by  lively  fancy  or  profound  reflec- 
tion ;  and  even  in  his  own  country,  at  the  end  of  a  few  years,  his 


488  EDWARD    GIBBON'. 

name  and  writings  are  almost  obliterated.  But  his  philosophy  had 
been  formed  in  the  school  of  Locke,  his  divinity  in  that  of  Lim- 
borch  and  Le  Clerc ;  in  a  long  and  laborious  life,  several  genera- 
tions of  pupils  were  taught  to  think,  and  even  to  write ;  his  lessons 
rescued  the  academy  of  Lausanne  from  Calvinistic  prejudice  ;  and 
he  had  the  rare  merit  of  diffusing  a  more  liberal  spirit  among  the 
clergy  and  people  of  the  Pays  de  Vaud.  His  system  of  logic, 
which  in  the  last  editions  has  swelled  to  six  tedious  and  prolix 
volumes,  may  be  praised  as  a  clear  and  methodical  abridgment  of 
the  art  of  reasoning,  from  our  simple  ideas  to  the  most  complex 
operations  of  the  human  understanding.  This  system  I  studied, 
and  meditated,  and  abstracted,  till  I  have  obtained  the  free  com- 
mand of  an  universal  instrument,  which  I  soon  presumed  to  exer- 
cise on  my  catholic  opinions.  Pavilliard  was  not  unmindful  that 
his  first  task,  his  most  important  duty,  was  to  reclaim  me  from 
the  errors  of  popery.  The  intermixture  of  sects  has  rendered  the 
Swiss  clergy  acute  and  learned  on  the  topics  of  controversy ;  and 
I  have  some  of  his  letters  in  which  he  celebrates  the  dexterity  of 
his  attack,  and  my  gradual  concessions  after  a  firm  and  well- 
managed  defence.7  I  was  willing,  and  I  am  now  willing,  to  allow 
him  a  handsome  share  of  the  honour  of  my  conversion  :  yet  I 
must  observe,  that  it  was  principally  effected  by  my  private  reflec- 
tions ;  and  I  still  remember  my  solitary  transport  at  the  discovery 
of  a  philosophical  argument  against  the  doctrine  of  transubstanti- 
ation  :  that  the  text  of  scripture,  which  seems  to  inculcate  the 
real  presence,  is  attested  only  by  a  single  sense  —  our  sight ;  while 
the  real  presence  itself  is  disproved  by  three  of  our  senses  —  the 
sight,  the  touch,  and  the  taste.  The  various  articles  of  the 
Romish  creed  disappeared  like  a  dream ;  and  after  a  full  convic- 

7  M.  Pavilliard  has  described  to  me  the  astonishment  with  which  he  gazed 
on  Mr.  Gibbon  standing  before  him,  —  a  thin  little  figure,  with  a  large  head, 
disputing  and  urging,  with  the  greatest  ability,  all  the  best  arguments  that  had 
ever  been  used  in  favour  of  popery.  Mr.  Gibbon  many  years  ago  became 
very  fat  and  corpulent,  but  he  had  uncommonly  small  bones,  and  was  very 
slight  made.  —  SHEFFIELD'S  Note. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  489 

tion,  on  Christmas-day,  1754,  I  received  the  sacrament  in  the 
church  of  Lausanne.  It  was  here  that  I  suspended  my  religious 
inquiries,  acquiescing  with  implicit  belief  in  the  tenets  and  myste- 
ries, which  are  adopted  by  the  general  consent  of  catholics  and 
protestants. 

Such,  from  my  arrival  at  Lausanne,  during  the  first  eighteen  or 
twenty  months  (July  i753~March  1755),  were  my  useful  studies, 
the  foundation  of  all  my  future  improvements.  But  every  man 
who  rises  above  the  common  level  has  received  two  educations  : 
the  first  from  his  teachers ;  the  second,  more  personal  and  impor- 
tant, from  himself.  He  will  not,  like  the  fanatics  of  the  last  age, 
define  the  moment  of  grace  ;  but  he  cannot  forget  the  sera  of  his 
life,  in  which  his  mind  has  expanded  to  its  proper  form  and 
dimensions.  My  worthy  tutor  had  the  good  sense  and  modesty 
to  discern  how  far  he  could  be  useful :  as  soon  as  he  felt  that  I 
advanced  beyond  his  speed  and  measure,  he  wisely  left  me  to  my 
genius ;  and  the  hours  of  lesson  were  soon  lost  in  the  voluntary 
labour  of  the  whole  morning,  and  sometimes  of  the  whole  day. 
The  desire  of  prolonging  my  time,  gradually  confirmed  the  salu- 
tary habit  of  early  rising,  to  which  I  have  always  adhered,  with 
some  regard  to  seasons  and  situations ;  but  it  is  happy  for  my 
eyes  and  my  health,  that  my  temperate  ardour  has  never  been 
seduced  to  trespass  on  the  hours  of  the  night.  During  the  last 
three  years  of  my  residence  at  Lausanne,  I  may  assume  the  merit 
of  serious  and  solid  application ;  but  I  am  tempted  to  distinguish 
the  last  eight  months  of  the  year  1755,  as  the  period  of  the  most 
extraordinary  diligence  and  rapid  progress.8  In  my  French 

8  JOURNAL,  December,  1755.]  — In  finishing  this  year,  I  must  remark  how 
favourable  it  was  to  my  studies.  In  the  space  of  eight  months,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  April,  I  learnt  the  principles  of  drawing;  made  myself  complete  mas- 
ter of  the  French  and  Latin  languages,  with  which  I  was  very  superficially 
acquainted  before,  and  wrote  and  translated  a  great  deal  in  both;  read  Cic- 
ero's Epistles  ad  Familiares,  his  Brutus,  all  his  Orations,  his  Dialogues  de 
Amicitia,  and  De  Senectute;  Terence,  twice;  and  Pliny's  Epistles;  in 
French,  Giannone's  History  of  Naples,  and  1'Abbe  Bannier's  Mythology,  and 
M.  de  Boehat's  Memoirs  sur  la  Suisse,  and  wrote  a  very  ample  relation  of  my 


490  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

and  Latin  translations  I  adopted  an  excellent  method,  which, 
from  my  own  success,  I  would  recommend  to  the  imitation  of 
students.  I  chose  some  classic  writer,  such  as  Cicero  and  Vertot, 
the  most  approved  for  purity  and  elegance  of  style.  I  translated, 
for  instance,  an  epistle  of  Cicero  into  French ;  and  after  throwing 
it  aside,  till  the  words  and  phrases  were  obliterated  from  my 
memory,  I  re-translated  my  French  into  such  Latin  as  I  could 
find  ;  and  then  compared  each  sentence  of  my  imperfect  version, 
with  the  ease,  the  grace,  the  propriety  of  the  Roman  orator.  A 
similar  experiment  was  made  on  several  pages  of  the  Revolutions 
of  Vertot ;  I  turned  them  into  Latin,  returned  them  after  a  suffi- 
cient interval  into  my  own  French,  and  again  scrutinized  the 
resemblance  or  dissimilitude  of  the  copy  and  the  original.  By 
degrees  I  was  less  ashamed,  by  degrees  I  was  more  satisfied  with 
myself;  and  I  persevered  in  the  practice  of  these  double  transla- 
tions, which  filled  several  books,  till  I  had  acquired  the  knowledge 
of  both  idioms,  and  the  command  at  least  of  a  correct  style. 
This  useful  exercise  of  writing  was  accompanied  and  succeeded  by 
the  more  pleasing  occupation  of  reading  the  best  authors.  The 
perusal  of  the  Roman  classics  was  at  once  my  exercise  and  reward. 
Dr.  Middleton's  History,  which  I  then  appreciated  above  its  true 
value,  naturally  directed  me  to  the  writings  of  Cicero.  The  most 
perfect  editions,  that  of  Olivet,  which  may  adorn  the  shelves  of 
the  rich,  that  of  Ernesti,  which  should  lie  on  the  table  of  the 
learned,  were  not  in  my  power.  For  the  familiar  epistles  I  used 
the  text  and  English  commentary  of  Bishop  Ross  :  but  my  general 
edition  was  that  of  Verburgius,  published  at  Amsterdam  in  two 
large  volumes  in  folio,  with  an  indifferent  choice  of  various  notes. 
I  read,  with  application  and  pleasure,  all  the  epistles,  all  the  ora- 
tions, and  the  most  important  treatises  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy ; 

tour.  I  likewise  began  to  study  Greek,  and  went  through  the  Grammar.  I 
begun  to  make  very  large  collections  of  what  I  read.  But  what  I  esteem  most 
of  all,  from  the  perusal  and  meditation  of  De  Crousaz's  Logic,  I  not  only 
understood  the  principles  of  that  science,  but  formed  my  mind  to  a  habit  of 
thinking  and  reasoning  I  had  no  idea  of  before. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  491 

and  as  I  read,  I  applauded  the  observation  of  Quintilian,  that 
every  student  may  judge  of  his  own  proficiency  by  the  satisfaction 
which  he  receives  from  the  Roman  orator.  I  tasted  the  beauties 
of  language,  I  breathed  the  spirit  of  freedom,  and  I  imbibed  from 
his  precepts  and  examples  the  public  and  private  sense  of  a  man. 
Cicero  in  Latin,  and  Xenophon  in  Greek,  are  indeed  the  two 
ancients  whom  I  would  first  propose  to  a  liberal  scholar ;  not  only 
for  the  merit  of  their  style  and  sentiments,  but  for  the  admirable 
lessons,  which  may  be  applied  almost  to  every  situation  of  public 
and  private  life.  Cicero's  Epistles  may  in  particular  afford  the 
models  of  every  form  of  correspondence,  from  the  careless  effu- 
sions of  tenderness  and  friendship,  to  the  well-guarded  declaration 
of  discreet  and  dignified  resentment.  After  finishing  this  great 
author,  a  library  of  eloquence  and  reason,  I  formed  a  more  exten- 
sive plan  of  reviewing  the  Latin  classics,9  under  the  four  divisions 
of,  i.  historians,  2.  poets,  3.  orators,  and  4.  philosophers,  in  a 
chronological  series,  from  the  days  of  Plautus  and  Sallust,  to  the 
decline  of  the  language  and  empire  of  Rome  :  and  this  plan,  in 
the  last  twenty-seven  months  of  my  residence  at  Lausanne  (Jan. 
1756-April  1758),  I  nearly  accomplished.  Nor  was  this  review, 
however  rapid,  either  hasty  or  superficial.  I  indulged  myself  in  a 
second  and  even  a  third  perusal  of  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace,  Taci- 
tus, &c.,  and  studied  to  imbibe  the  sense  and  spirit  most  con- 
genial to  my  own.  I  never  suffered  a  difficult  or  corrupt  passage 
to  escape,  till  I  had  viewed  it  in  every  light  of  which  it  was  sus- 
ceptible :  though  often  disappointed,  I  always  consulted  the  most 
learned  or  ingenious  commentators,  Torrentius  and  Dacier  on 
Horace,  Catrou  and  Servius  on  Virgil,  Lipsius  on  Tacitus,  Meziriac 
on  Ovid,  &c. ;  and  in  the  ardour  of  my  inquiries,  I  embraced  a 
large  circle  of  historical  and  critical  erudition.  My  abstracts  of 
each  book  were  made  in  the  French  language  :  my  observations 

9  JOURNAL,  Jan.  1756. —  I  determined  to  read  over  the  Latin 'authors  in 
order;  and  read  this  year,  Virgil,  Sallust,  Livy,  Velleius  Paterculus,  Valerius 
Maximus,  Tacitus,  Suetonius,  Quintus  Curtius,  Justin,  Florus,  Plautus,  Terence, 
and  Lucretius.  I  also  read  and  meditated  Locke  upon  the  Understanding. 


492  EDWARD   GfBBOtf. 

often  branched  into  particular  essays ;  and  I  can  still  read,  with- 
out contempt,  a  dissertation  of  eight  folio  pages  on  eight  lines 
(287-294)  of  the  fourth  Georgic  of  Virgil.  Mr.  Deyverdun,  my 
friend,  whose  name  will  be  frequently  repeated,  had  joined  with 
equal  zeal,  though  not  with  equal  perseverance,  in  the  same  under- 
taking. To  him  every  thought,  every  composition,  was  instantly 
communicated ;  with  him  I  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  a  free  conver- 
sation on  the  topics  of  our  common  studies. 

But  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  a  mind  endowed  with  any  active 
curiosity  to  be  long  conversant  with  the  Latin  classics,  without 
aspiring  to  know  the  Greek  originals,  whom  they  celebrate  as  their 
masters,  and  of  whom  they  so  warmly  recommend  the  study  and 
imitation  : 

.  .  .    Vos  exemplaria  Grceca 

Nocturnd  versate  manu,  versate  diurnd,™ 

It  was  now  that  I  regretted  the  early  years  which  had  been 
wasted  in  sickness  or  idleness,  or  mere  idle  reading ;  that  I  con- 
demned the  perverse  method  of  our  schoolmasters,  who,  by  first 
teaching  the  mother-language,  might  descend  with  so  much  ease 
and  perspicuity  to  the  origin  and  etymology  of  a  derivative  idiom. 
In  the  nineteenth  year  of  my  age  I  determined  to  supply  this 
defect ;  and  the  lessons  of  Pavilliard  again  contributed  to  smooth 
the  entrance  of  the  way,  the  Greek  alphabet,  the  grammar,  and 
the  pronunciation  according  to  the  French  accent.  At  my  earnest 
request  we  presumed  to  open  the  Iliad ;  and  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  beholding,  though  darkly  and  through  a  glass,  the  true  image 
of  Homer,  whom  I  had  long  since  admired  in  an  English  dress. 
After  my  tutor  had  left  me  to  myself,  I  worked  my  way  through 
about  half  the  Iliad,  and  afterwards  interpreted  alone  a  large  por- 
tion of  Xenophon  and  Herodotus.  But  my  ardour,  destitute  of 
aid  and  emulation,  was  gradually  cooled,  and,  from  the  barren  task 
of  searching  words  in  a  lexicon,  I  withdrew  to  the  free  and  familiar 

10  Study  the  Greek  models  by  night  and  by  day.  —  HORACE,  Ars  Poetica, 
208-9. 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  493 

conversation  of  Virgil  and  Tacitus.  Yet  in  my  residence  at  Lau- 
sanne I  had  laid  a  solid  foundation,  which  enabled  me,  in  a  more 
propitious  season,  to  prosecute  the  study  of  Grecian  literature. 

From  a  blind  idea  of  the  usefulness  of  such  abstract  science,  my 
father  had  been  desirous,  and  even  pressing,  that  I  should  devote 
some  time  to  the  mathematics ;  nor  could  I  refuse  to  comply  with 
so  reasonable  a  wish.  During  two  winters  I  attended  the  private 
lectures  of  Monsieur  de  Traytorrens,  who  explained  the  elements 
of  algebra  and  geometry,  as  far  as  the  conic  sections  of  the  Mar- 
quis de  l'H6pital,  and  appeared  satisfied  with  my  diligence  and 
improvement.11  But  as  my  childish  propensity  for  numbers  and 
calculations  was  totally  extinct,  I  was  content  to  receive  the  pas- 
sive impression  of  my  Professor's  lectures,  without  any  active  exer- 
cise of  my  own  powers.  As  soon  as  I  understood  the  principles, 
I  relinquished  for  ever  the  pursuit  of  the  mathematics ;  nor  can  I 
lament  that  I  desisted,  before  my  mind  was  hardened  by  the  habit 
of  rigid  demonstration,  so  destructive  of  the  finer  feelings  of  moral 
evidence,  which  must,  however,  determine  the  actions  and  opin- 
ions of  our  lives.  I  listened  with  more  pleasure  to  the  proposal 
of  studying  the  law  of  nature  and  nations,  which  was  taught  in  the 
academy  of  Lausanne  by  Mr.  Vicat,  a  professor  of  some  learning 
and  reputation.  But  instead  of  attending  his  public  or  private 
course,  I  preferred  in  my  closet  the  lessons  of  his  masters,  and  my 

11  JOURNAL,  January,  1757. —  I  began  to  study  algebra  under  M.  de  Tray- 
torrens, went  through  the  elements  of  algebra  and  geometry,  and  the  three 
first  books  of  the  Marquis  de  PHopital's  Conic  Sections.  I  also  read  Tibullus, 
Catullus,  Propertius,  Horace,  (with  Dacier's  and  Torrentius's  Notes,)  Virgil, 
Ovid's  Epistles,  with  Meziriac's  Commentary,  the  Ars  Amandi,  and  the  Ele- 
gies; likewise  the  Augustus  and  Tiberius  of  Suetonius,  and  a  Latin  transla- 
tion of  Dion  Cassius,  from  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  death  of  Augustus. 
I  also  continued  my  correspondence  begun  last  year  with  M.  Allemand  of  Bex, 
and  the  Professor  Breitinger  of  Zurich;  and  opened  a  new  one  with  the 
Professor  Gesner  of  Gottingen. 

N.  B.  Last  year  and  this,  I  read  St.  John's  Gospel,  with  part  of  Xenophon's 
Cyropaedia;  the  Iliad,  and  Herodotus;  but  upon  the  whole,  I  rather  neglected 
my  Greek. 


494  EDWARD    GIBBON. 

own  reason.  Without  being  disgusted  by  Grotius  or  Puffendorf,  I 
studied  in  their  writings  the  duties  of  a  man,  the  rights  of  a  citi- 
zen, the  theory  of  justice  (it  is,  alas  !  a  theory),  and  the  laws  of 
peace  and  war,  which  have  had  some  influence  on  the  practice  of 
modern  Europe.  My  fatigues  were  alleviated  by  the  good  sense 
of  their  commentator  Barbeyrac.  Locke's  Treatise  of  Govern- 
ment instructed  me  in  the  knowledge  of  Whig  principles,  which 
are  rather  founded  in  reason  than  experience ;  but  my  delight  was 
in  the  frequent  perusal  of  Montesquieu,  whose  energy  of  style,  and 
boldness  of  hypothesis,  were  powerful  to  awaken  and  stimulate  the 
genius  of  the  age.  The  logic  of  De  Crousaz  had  prepared  me  to 
engage  with  his  master  Locke  and  his  antagonist  Bayle ;  of  whom 
the  former  may  be  used  as  a  bridle,  and  the  latter  applied  as  a 
spur,  to  the  curiosity  of  a  young  philosopher.  According  to  the 
nature  of  their  respective  works,  the  schools  of  argument  and  ob- 
jection, I  carefully  went  through  the  Essay  on  Human  Understand- 
ing, and  occasionally  consulted  the  most  interesting  articles  of  the 
Philosophic  Dictionary.  In  the  infancy  of  my  reason  I  turned  over, 
as  an  idle  amusement,  the  most  serious  and  important  treatise  :  in 
its  maturity,  the  most  trifling  performance  could  exercise  my  taste 
or  judgment,  and  more  than  once  I  have  been  led  by  a  novel  into 
a  deep  and  instructive  train  of  thinking.  But  I  cannot  forbear  to 
mention  three  particular  books,  since  they  may  have  remotely 
contributed  to  form  the  historian  of  the  Roman  empire,  i .  From 
the  Provincial  Letters  of  Pascal,  which  almost  every  year  I  have 
perused  with  new  pleasure,  I  learned  to  manage  the  weapon  of 
grave  and  temperate  irony,  even  on  subjects  of  ecclesiastical  sol- 
emnity. 2.  The  Life  of  Julian,  by  the  Abb6  de  la  Bleterie,  first 
introduced  me  to  the  man  and  the  times ;  and  I  should  be  glad 
to  recover  my  first  essay  on  the  truth  of  the  miracle  which  stopped 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem.  3.  In  Giannone's 
Civil  History  of  Naples  I  observed  with  a  critical  eye  the  progress 
and  abuse  of  sacerdotal  power,  and  the  revolutions  of  Italy  in  the 
darker  ages.  This  various  reading,  which  I  now  conducted  with 
discretion,  was  digested,  according  to  the  precept  and  model  of 


MEMOIRS   OF  MY  LIFE  AND    WRITINGS.  495 

Mr.  Locke,  into  a  large  common-place  book ;  a  practice,  however, 
which  I  do  not  strenuously  recommend.  The  action  of  the  pen 
will  doubtless  imprint  an  idea  on  the  mind  as  well  as  on  the 
paper :  but  I  much  question  whether  the  benefits  of  this  laborious 
method  are  adequate  to  the  waste  of  time ;  and  I  must  agree  with 
Dr.  Johnson,  (Idler,  No.  74.)  "that  what  is  twice  read,  is  com- 
monly better  remembered,  than  what  is  transcribed." 


XXIV. 

SIR   WALTER   SCOTT. 

(1771-1832.) 

ESSAY  ON  THE  DRAMA. 

[Written  before  1819.] 

THE  Drama  of  England  commenced,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, upon  the  Spanish  model.  Ferrex  and  Porrex  was  the 
first  composition  approaching  to  a  regular  tragedy ;  and  it  was 
acted  before  Queen  Elizabeth  upon  the  i8th  of  January,  1561,  by 
the  gentlemen  of  the  Inner  Temple.  It  partakes  rather  of  the 
character  of  a  historical  than  of  a  classical  Drama,  although  more 
nearly  allied  to  the  latter  class  than  the  chronicle  plays  which 
afterwards  took  possession  of  the  stage.  We  have  already  re- 
corded Sir  Philip  Sidney's  commendation  of  this  play,  which  he 
calls  by  the  name  of  Gorboduc  from  one  of  the  principal  charac- 
ters.1 Acted  by  a  learned  body,  and  written  in  great  part  by  Lord 
Sackville,  the  principal  author  of  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  the 
first  of  English  tragedies  assumed  in  some  degree  the  honours  of 
the  learned  buskin ;  but  although  a  Chorus  was  presented  accord- 
ing to  the  classical  model,  the  play  was  free  from  the  observance 
of  the  unities ;  and  contains  many  irregularities  severely  con- 
demned by  the  regular  critics. 

English  comedy,  considered  as  a  regular  composition,  is  said  to 

1  Gorboduc  was  the  father  of  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  between  whom  he  divided 
his  kingdom,  and  the  plot  details  the  wars  consequent  thereupon.    It  is  taken 
from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  History  of  the  Britons.     See  ante,  p.  39. 
496 


ESSAY  ON  THE  DRAMA.  497 

have  commenced  with  Gammer  Gurtoris  Needle?  This  "  right 
pithy,  pleasant,  and  merry  comedy,"  was  the  supposed  composition 
of  John  Still,  Master  of  Arts,  and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells.  It  was  acted  in  Christ  Church  College,  Cambridge,  1575. 
It  is  a  piece  of  low  humour,  the  whole  jest  turning  upon  the  loss 
and  recovery  of  the  needle  with  which  Gammer  Gurton  was  to 
repair  the  breeches  of  her  man  Hodge  ;  but,  in  point  of  manners, 
it  is  a  great  curiosity,  as  the  curta  suppellex 3  of  our  ancestors  is 
scarcely  anywhere  so  well  described.  The  popular  characters  also, 
the  Sturdy  Beggar,  the  Clown,  the  Country  Vicar,  and  the  Shrew, 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  are  drawn  in  colours  taken  from  the 
life.  The  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action,  are  observed  through 
the  play  with  an  accuracy  of  which  France  might  be  jealous. 
The  time  is  a  few  hours  —  the  place,  the  open  square  of  the 
village  before  Gammer  Gurton's  door  —  the  action,  the  loss  of  the 
needle  —  and  this,  followed  by  the  search  for  and  final  recovery 
of  that  necessary  implement,  is  intermixed  with  no  other  thwarting 
or  subordinate  interest,  but  is  progressive  from  the  commence- 
ment to  the  conclusion. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  earliest  English  tragedy  and  comedy 
are  both  works  of  considerable  merit ;  that  each  partakes  of  the 
distinct  character  of  its  class ;  that  the  tragedy  is  without  intermix- 
ture of  comedy  ;  the  comedy,  without  any  intermixture  of  tragedy. 

These  models  were  followed  by  a  variety  of  others,  in  which  no 
such  distinctions  were  observed.  Numerous  theatres  sprung  up  in 
different  parts  of  the  metropolis,  opened  upon  speculation  by  dis- 
tinct troops  of  performers.  Their  number  shows  how  much  they 
interested  public  curiosity ;  for  men  never  struggle  for  a  share  in  a 
losing  profession.  They  acted  under  licenses,  which  appear  to 
have  been  granted  for  the  purpose  of  police  alone,  not  of  exclusive 
privilege  or  monopoly ;  since  London  contained,  in  the  latter 

2  In  1820  it  was  ascertained  by  Collier  that  Udall's  comedy,  Ralph  Roister 
Doister,  was  earlier  than  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle.  See  Collier's  History  of 
English  Dramatic  Poetry,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  444  ff.,  ed.  1831. 

8  small  furniture.     Used  metaphorically  in  PERSIUS,  Satires,  IV.  52. 


498  SIR   WALTER   SCOTT. 

part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  no  fewer  than  fourteen  distinct  com- 
panies of  players,  with  very  considerable  privileges  and  remunera- 
tions. See  Drake's  Shakspeare  and  his  Times,  vol.  ii,  p.  205. 

The  public,  therefore,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  was  at 
once  arbiter  and  patron  of  the  Drama.  The  companies  of  players 
who  traversed  the  country,  might  indeed  assume  the  name  of 
some  peer  or  baron,  for  the  sake  of  introduction  or  protection  ;  but 
those  of  the  metropolis  do  not,  at  this  early  period  of  our  dramatic 
history,  appear  to  have  rested  in  any  considerable  degree  upon 
learned  or  aristocratic  privilege.  The  license  was  obtained  from 
the  crown,  but  their  success  depended  upon  the  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  the  pieces  which  they  brought  forward  were,  of  course, 
adapted  to  popular  taste.  It  followed  necessarily  that  histories 
and  romantic  Dramas  were  the  favourites  of  the  period.  A  gen- 
eral audience  in  an  unlearned  age  requires  rather  amusement  than 
conformity  to  rules,  and  is  more  displeased  with  a  tiresome  uni- 
formity than  shocked  with  the  breach  of  all  the  unities.  The 
players  and  dramatists,  before  the  rise  of  Shakspeare,  followed,  of 
consequence,  the  taste  of  the  public ;  and  dealt  in  the  surprising, 
elevating,  and  often  bombastic  incidents  of  tragedy,  as  well  as  in 
the  low  humours  and  grotesque  situations  of  the  comic  scene. 
Where  these  singly  were  found  to  lack  attraction,  they  mingled 
them  together,  and  dashed  their  tragic  plot  with  an  under-intrigue 
of  the  lowest  buffoonery,  without  any  respect  to  taste  or  congruity. 

The  clown  was  no  stranger  to  the  stage ;  he  interfered,  without 
ceremony,  in  the  most  heart-rending  scenes,  to  the  scandal  of  the 
more  learned  spectators. 

"  Now  lest  such  frightful  shows  of  fortune's  fall 
And  bloody  tyrant's  rage  should  chance  appall 
The  death-struck  audience,  'midst  the  silent  rout, 
Comes  leaping  in  a  self-misformed  lout, 
And  laughs  and  grins,  and  frames  his  mimic  face, 
And  jostles  straight  into  the  prince's  place; 
Then  doth  the  theatre  echo  all  aloud, 
With  gladsome  noise  of  that  applauding  crowd, 
A  goodly  hotchpotch,  where  vile  russettings 
Are  matched  with  monarchs  and  with  mighty  kings." 


ESSAY  ON  THE  DRAMA.  499 

An  ancient  stage-trick,  illustrative  of  the  mixture  of  tragic  and 
comic  action  in  Shakspeare's  time,  was  long  preserved  in  the 
theatre.  Henry  IV.,  holding  council  before  the  battle  of  Shrews- 
bury, was  always  represented  as  seated  on  a  drum ;  and  when  he 
rose  and  came  forward  to  address  his  nobles,  the  place  was  occu- 
pied by  Falstaff;  a  practical  jest  which  seldom  failed  to  produce 
a  laugh  from  the  galleries.  The  taste  and  judgment  of  the  author 
himself  were  very  different.  During  the  whole  scene,  Falstaff 
gives  only  once,  and  under  irresistible  temptation,  the  rein  to  his 
petulant  wit,  and  it  is  instantly  checked  by  the  prince ;  to  whom, 
by  the  way,  and  not  to  the  king,  his  words  ought  to  be  addressed. 

The  English  stage  might  be  considered  equally  without  rule  and 
without  model  when  Shakspeare  arose.  The  effect  of  the  genius 
of  an  individual  upon  the  taste  of  a  nation  is  mighty ;  but  that 
genius,  in  its  turn,  is  formed  according  to  the  opinions  prevalent  at 
the  period  when  it  comes  into  existence.  Such  was  the  case  with 
Shakspeare.  Had  he  received  an  education  more  extensive,  and 
possessed  a  taste  refined  by  the  classical  models,  it  is  probable 
that  he  also,  in  admiration  of  the  ancient  Drama,  might  have  mis- 
taken the  form  for  the  essence,  and  subscribed  to  those  rules 
which  had  produced  such  masterpieces  of  art.  Fortunately  for 
the  full  exertion  of  a  genius,  as  comprehensive  and  versatile  as 
intense  and  powerful,  Shakspeare  had  no  access  to  any  models  of 
which  the  commanding  merit  might  have  controlled  and  limited 
his  own  exertions.  He  followed  the  path  which  a  nameless  crowd 
of  obscure  writers  had  trodden  before  him ;  but  he  moved  in  it 
with  the  grace  and  majestic  step  of  a  being  of  a  superior  order ; 
and  vindicated  for  ever  the  British  theatre  from  a  pedantic  restric- 
tion to  classical  rule.  Nothing  went  before  Shakspeare  which 
in  any  respect  was  fit  to  fix  and  stamp  the  character  of  a  national 
Drama ;  and  certainly  no  one  will  succeed  him  capable  of  estab- 
lishing, by  mere  authority,  a  form  more  restricted  than  that  which 
Shakspeare  used. 

Such  is  the  action  of  existing  circumstances  upon  genius  and 
the  re-action  of  genius  upon  future  circumstances.  Shakspeare 


500  SIR    WALTER   SCOTT. 

and  Corneille  was  each  the  leading  spirit  of  his  age ;  and  the  dif- 
ference between  them  is  well  marked  by  the  editor  of  the  latter  :  — 
"  Corneille  est  inegal  comme  Shakespeare,  et  plein  de  genie  comme 
lui ;  mats  le  genie  fie  Corneille  etoit  a  celui  de  Shakespeare  ce  qu'un 
seigneur  est  a  Fegard  d'un  homme  de  peuple  ne  avec  le  meme  esprit 
que  lui."  4  This  distinction  is  strictly  accurate,  and  contains  a 
compliment  to  the  English  author  which,  assuredly,  the  critic  did 
not  intend  to  make.  Corneille  wrote  as  a  courtier,  circumscribed 
within  the  imaginary  rules  and  ceremonies  of  a  court,  as  a  chicken 
is  by  a  circle  of  chalk  drawn  round  it.  Shakspeare,  composing 
for  the  amusement  of  the  public  alone,  had  within  his  province 
not  only  the  inexhaustible  field  of  actual  life,  but  the  whole  ideal 
world  of  fancy  and  superstition ;  more  favourable  to  the  display  of 
poetical  genius  than  even  existing  realities.  Under  the  circum- 
stances of  Corneille,  Shakspeare  must  have  been  restricted  to  the 
same  dull,  regular,  and  unvaried  system.  He  must  have  written, 
not  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  genius,  but  in  conformity 
to  the  mandate  of  some  Intendant  des  menus  plaisirs  ; 5  or  of  some 
minister  of  state,  who,  like  Cardinal  Richelieu,  thought  he  could 
write  a  tragedy  because  he  could  govern  a  kingdom.  It  is  not 
equally  clear  to  what  height  Corneille  might  have  ascended,  had  he 
enjoyed  the  national  immunities  of  Shakspeare.  Each  pitched 
down  a  land-mark  in  his  art.  The  circle  of  Shakspeare  was  so 
extensive,  that  it  is  with  advantage  liable  to  many  restrictions ; 
that  of  Corneille  included  a  narrow  limit,  which  his  successors 
have  deemed  it  unlawful  to  enlarge. 

It  is  not  our  intention,  within  the  narrow  space  to  which  our 
essay  is  necessarily  limited,  to  enlarge  upon  the  character  and 
writings  of  Shakspeare.  We  can  only  notice  his  performances  as 
events  in  the  history  of  the  theatre  —  of  a  gigantic  character, 
indeed,  so  far  as  its  dignity,  elevation,  and  importance  are  consid- 

*  Corneille  is  unequal  like  Shakespeare,  and  full  of  genius  like  him  ;  but 
the  genius  of  Corneille  was  to  that  of  Shakespeare  -what  a  lord  is  in  respect  to 
a  man  of  the  people,  born  -with  the  same  wit  as  he. 

8  Director  of  minor  entertainments. 


ESSAY  ON  THE  DRAMA.  501 

ered ;  but,  in  respect  of  the  mere  practice  of  the  Drama,  rather 
fixing  and  sanctioning,  than  altering  or  reforming,  those  rules  and 
forms  which  he  found  already  established.  This  we  know  for  cer- 
tain, that  those  historical  plays  or  chronicles,  in  which  Shakspeare's 
muse  has  thrown  a  never-fading  light  upon  the  history  of  his 
country,  did,  almost  every  one  of  them,  exist  before  him  in  the 
rude  shapes  of  dry  dialogue  and  pitiful  buffoonery,  stitched  into 
scenes  by  the  elder  play-wrights  of  the  stage.  His  romantic  Dramas 
exhibit  the  same  contempt  of  regularity  which  was  manifested  by 
Marlow,  and  other  writers  ;  for  where  there  was  abuse  or  extreme 
license  upon  the  stage,  the  example  of  Shakspeare  may  be  often 
quoted  as  its  sanction,  never  as  tending  to  reform  it.  In  these 
particulars  the  practice  of  our  immortal  bard  was  contrasted  with 
that  of  Ben  Jonson,  a  severe  and  somewhat  pedantic  scholar  —  a 
man  whose  mind  was  coarse,  though  possessing  both  strength  and 
elevation,  and  whose  acute  perception  of  comic  humours  was 
tinctured  with  vulgarity. 

Jonson's  tragic  strength  consists  in  a  sublime,  and  sometimes 
harsh,  expression  of  moral  sentiment ;  but  displays  little  of  tu- 
multuous and  ardent  passion,  still  less  of  tenderness  or  deli- 
cacy, although  there  are  passages  in  which  he  seems  adequate 
to  expressing  them.  He  laboured  in  the  mine  of  the  classics, 
but  over-loaded  himself  with  the  ore,  which  he  could  not,  or 
would  not,  refine.  His  Cataline  and  Sejanus  are  laboured  trans- 
lations from  Cicero,  Sallust,  and  Tacitus,  which  his  own  age  did 
not  endure,  and  which  no  succeeding  generation  will  be  probably 
much  tempted  to  revive.  With  the  stern  superiority  of  learning 
over  ignorance,  he  asserted  himself  a  better  judge  of  his  own  pro- 
ductions, than  the  public  which  condemned  him,  and  haughtily 
claimed  the  laurel  which  the  general  suffrage  often  withheld,  but 
the  world  has  as  yet  shown  no  disposition  to  reverse  the  opinion  of 
their  predecessors. 

In  comedy,  Jonson  made  some  efforts  partaking  of  the  character 
of  the  older  comedy  of  the  Grecians.  In  his  Tale  of  a  Tub  he 
follows  the  path  of  Aristophanes  and  lets  his  wit  run  into  low 


502  SIR    WALTER   SCOTT. 

buffoonery,  that  he  might  bring  upon  the  stage  Inigo  Jones,  his 
personal  enemy.  In  Cynthia's  Revells,  and  The  Staple  of  News, 
we  find  him  introducing  the  dull  personification  of  abstract  passions 
and  qualities,  and  turning  legitimate  comedy  into  an  allegorical 
mask.  What  interest  can  the  reader  have  in  such  characters  as 
the  three  Penny  boys,  and  their  transactions  with  the  Lady 
Pecunia  ? 

Some  of  Jonson's  more  legitimate  comedies  may  be  also  taxed 
here  with  filthiness  of  language  ;  of  which  disgusting  attribute  his 
works  exhibit  more  instances  than  those  of  any  English  writer  of 
eminence,  excepting  Swift.  Let  us,  however,  be  just  to  a  master- 
spirit of  his  age.  The  comic  force  of  Jonson  was  strong,  marked, 
and  peculiar ;  and  he  excelled  even  Shakspeare  himself  in  draw- 
ing that  class  of  truly  English  characters,  remarkable  for  peculiarity 
of  humour — that  is,  for  some  mode  of  thought,  speech,  and  be- 
haviour, superinduced  upon  the  natural  disposition,  by  profession, 
education,  or  fantastical  affectation  of  singularity.  In  blazoning 
these  forth  with  their  natural  attributes  and  appropriate  language, 
Ben  Jonson  has  never  been  excelled ;  and  his  works  everywhere 
exhibit  a  consistent  and  manly  moral,  resulting  naturally  from  the 
events  of  the  scene. 

It  must  also  be  remembered,  that,  although  it  was  Jonson's  fate 
to  be  eclipsed  by  the  superior  genius,  energy,  and  taste  of  Shak- 
speare, yet  those  advantages  which  enabled  him  to  maintain  an 
honourable  though  an  unsuccessful  struggle,  were  of  high  advantage 
to  the  Drama.  Jonson  was  the  first  who  showed,  by  example,  the 
infinite  superiority  of  a  well-conceived  plot,  all  the  parts  of  which 
bore  upon  each  other,  and  forwarded  an  interesting  conclusion, 
over  a  tissue  of  detached  scenes,  following  without  necessary  con- 
nexion or  increase  of  interest.  The  plot  of  The  Fox  is  admirably 
conceived ;  and  that  of  The  Alchymist,  though  faulty  in  the  con- 
clusion, is  nearly  equal  to  it.  In  the  two  comedies  of  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour,  and  Every  Man  oi*t  of  his  Humour,  the  plot  de- 
serves much  less  praise,  and  is  deficient  at  once  in  interest  and 
unity  of  action ;  but  in  that  of  The  Silent  Woman,  nothing  can 


ESSAY  ON   THE  DRAMA.  503 

exceed  the  art  with  which  the  circumstance  upon  which  the  con- 
clusion turns,  is,  until  the  very  last  scene,  concealed  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  reader,  while  he  is  tempted  to  suppose  it  con- 
stantly within  his  reach.  In  a  word,  Jonson  is  distinguished  by 
his  strength  and  stature,  even  in  those  days  when  there  were  giants 
in  the  land ;  and  affords  a  model  of  a  close,  animated,  and  charac- 
teristic style  of  comedy,  abounding  in  moral  satire,  and  distinguished 
at  once  by  force  and  art,  which  was  afterwards  more  cultivated  by 
English  dramatists,  than  the  lighter,  more  wild,  and  more  fanciful 
department  in  which  Shakspeare  moved,  beyond  the  reach  of 
emulation. 

The  general  opinion  of  critics  has  assigned  genius  as  the  charac- 
teristic of  Shakspeare,  and  art  as  the  appropriate  excellence  of 
Jonson ;  not,  surely,  that  Jonson  was  deficient  in  genius,  but  that 
art  was  the  principal  characteristic  of  his  laborious  scenes.  We 
learn  from  his  own  confession  and  from  the  panegyrics  of  his 
friends,  as  well  as  the  taunts  of  his  enemies,  that  he  was  a  slow 
composer.  The  natural  result  of  laborious  care  is  jealousy  of  fame  ; 
for  that  which  we  do  with  labour,  we  value  highly  when  achieved. 
Shakspeare,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  to  have  composed  rapidly 
and  carelessly ;  and,  sometimes,  even  without  considering,  while 
writing  the  earlier  acts,  how  the  catastrophe  was  to  be  huddled  up 
in  that  which  was  to  conclude  the  piece.  We  may  fairly  conclude 
him  to  have  been  indifferent  about  fame,  who  would  take  so  little 
pains  to  win  it.  Much,  perhaps,  might  have  been  achieved  by  the 
union  of  these  opposed  qualities,  and  by  blending  the  art  of 
Jonson  with  the  fiery  invention  and  fluent  expression  of  his  great 
contemporary.  But  such  a  union  of  opposite  excellences  in  the 
same  author  was  hardly  to  be  expected  ;  nor,  perhaps,  would  the 
result  have  proved  altogether  so  favourable  as  might  at  first  view 
be  conceived.  We  should  have  had  more  perfect  specimens  of 
the  art ;  but  they  must  have  been  much  fewer  in  number ;  and 
posterity  would  certainly  have  been  deprived  of  that  rich  luxuri- 
ance of  dramatic  excellences  and  poetic  beauties,  which,  like  wild 
flowers  upon  a  common  field,  lie  scattered  profusely  among  the 
unacted  plays  of  Shakspeare. 


504  SIR    WALTER  SCOTT. 

Although  incalculably  superior  to  his  contemporaries,  Shakspeare 
had  successful  imitators,  and  the  art  of  Jonson  was  not  unrivalled. 
Massinger  appears  to  have  studied  the  works  of  both,  with  the  in- 
tention of  uniting  their  excellences.  He  knew  the  strength  of 
plot ;  and  although  his  plays  are  altogether  irregular,  yet  he  well 
understood  the  advantage  of  a  strong  and  denned  interest ;  and  in 
unravelling  the  intricacy  of  his  intrigues,  he  often  displays  the 
management  of  a  master.  Art,  therefore,  not  perhaps  in  its  tech- 
nical, but  in  its  most  valuable  sense,  was  Massinger's  as  well  as 
Jonson's  ;  and,  in  point  of  composition,  many  passages  of  his  plays 
are  not  unworthy  of  Shakspeare.  Were  we  to  distinguish  Massin- 
ger's peculiar  excellence,  we  should  name  that  first  of  dramatic 
attributes,  a  full  conception  of  character,  a  strength  in  bringing  out, 
and  consistency  in  adhering  to  it.  He  does  not,  indeed,  always 
introduce  his  personages  to  the  audience,  in  their  own  proper 
character ;  it  dawns  forth  gradually  in  the  progress  of  the  piece,  as 
in  the  hypocritical  Luke,  or  in  the  heroic  Marullo.  But,  upon 
looking  back,  we  are  always  surprised  and  delighted  to  trace  from 
the  very  beginning,  intimations  of  what  the  personage  is  to  prove, 
as  the  play  advances.  There  is  often  a  harshness  of  outline,  how- 
ever, in  the  characters  of  this  dramatist,  which  prevents  their  ap- 
proaching to  the  natural  and  easy  portraits  bequeathed  us  by 
Shakspeare. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  men  of  remarkable  talent,  seemed  to 
have  followed  Shakspeare's  mode  of  composition,  rather  than 
Jonson's,  and  thus  to  have  altogether  neglected  that  art  which 
Jonson  taught,  and  which  Massinger  in  some  sort  practised.  They 
may,  indeed,  be  rather  said  to  have  taken  for  their  model  the 
boundless  license  of  the  Spanish  stage,  from  which  many  of  their 
pieces  are  expressly  and  avowedly  derived.  The  acts  of  their 
plays  are  so  detached  from  each  other,  in  substance  and  consis- 
tency, that  the  plot  scarce  can  be  said  to  hang  together  at  all,  or 
to  have,  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  a  beginning,  progress,  and  con- 
clusion. It  seems  as  if  the  play  began,  because  the  curtain  rose, 
and  ended  because  it  fell ;  the  author,  in  the  meantime,  exerting 


ESSAY  ON   THE  DRAMA.  505 

his  genius  for  the  amusement  of  the  spectators,  pretty  much  in  the 
same  manner  as  in  the  Scenario  of  the  Italians,  by  the  actors  filling 
up,  with  their  extempore  wit,  the  scenes  chalked  out  for  them. 
To  compensate  for  this  excess  of  irregularity,  the  plays  of  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher  have  still  a  high  poetical  value.  If  character 
be  sometimes  violated,  probability  discarded,  and  the  interest  of 
the  plot  neglected,  the  reader  is,  on  the  other  hand,  often  gratified 
by  the  most  beautiful  description,  the  most  tender  and  passionate 
dialogue ;  a  display  of  brilliant  wit  and  gaiety,  or  a  feast  of  comic 
humour.  These  attributes  had  so  much  effect  on  the  public  that, 
during  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
centuries,  many  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  plays  had  possession 
of  the  stage,  while  those  of  Shakspeare  were  laid  upon  the  shelf. 

Shirley,  Ford,  Webster,  Decker,  and  others  added  performances 
to  the  early  treasures  of  the  English  Drama,  which  abound  with 
valuable  passages.  There  never,  probably,  rushed  into  the  lists  of 
literary  composition  together,  a  band  more  distinguished  for  talent. 
If  the  early  Drama  be  inartificial  and  unequal,  no  nation,  at  least, 
can  show  so  many  detached  scenes,  and  even  acts,  of  high  poetical 
merit.  One  powerful  cause  seems  to  have  produced  an  effect  so 
marked  and  distinguished  j  to  wit,  the  universal  favour  of  a  theatri- 
cal public,  which  daily  and  nightly  thronged  the  numerous  theatres 
then  open  in  the  city  of  London. 

In  considering  this  circumstance,  it  must  above  all  be  remem- 
bered that  these  numerous  audiences  crowded,  not  to  feast  their 
eyes  upon  show  and  scenery,  but  to  see  and  hear  the  literary  pro- 
duction of  the  evening.  The  scenes  which  the  stage  exhibited, 
were  probably  of  the  most  paltry  description.  Some  rude  helps 
to  the  imagination  of  the  audience  might  be  used  by  introducing 
the  gate  of  a  castle  or  town,  the  monument  of  the  Capulets,  by 
sinking  a  trap-door,  or  by  thrusting  in  a  bed.  The  good-natured 
audience  readily  received  these  hints  with  that  conventional  allow- 
ance which  Sir  Philip  Sidney  had  ridiculed, 6  and  which  Shakspeare 
himself  has  alluded  to,  when  he  appeals  from  the  poverty  of 

6  See  ante,  pp.  39,  40. 


506  SIR    WALTER   SCOTT. 

the  theatrical  representation  to  the  excited  imagination  of  his 
audience. 


"Can  this  cockpit  hold 


The  vasty  fields  of  France?     Or  may  we  cram 

Within  this  wooden  O,  the  very  casques 

That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agincourt? 

O,  pardon !  since  a  crooked  figure  may 

Attest,  in  little  place,  a  million; 

And  let  us,  ciphers  to  this  great  account, 

On  your  imaginary  forces  work : 

Suppose,  within  the  girdle  of  these  walls 

Are  now  confin'd  two  mighty  monarchies, 

Whose  high  upreared  and  abutting  fronts 

The  perilous,  narrow  ocean  parts  asunder; 

Think,  when  we  talk  of  horses,  that  you  see  them 

Printing  their  proud  hoofs  i'  the  receiving  earth. 

For  'tis  your  thoughts  that  now  must  deck  our  kings, 

Carry  them  here  and  there;  jumping  o'er  times; 

Turning  the  accomplishment  of  many  years 

Into  an  hour-glass."  — 

Chorus  to  K.  Henry  V.     \_Prologue,  11-31.] 

Such  were  the  allowances  demanded  by  Shakspeare  and  his  con- 
temporaries from  the  public  of  their  day,  in  consideration  of  the 
imperfect  means  and  appliances  of  their  theatrical  machinery. 
Yet  the  deficiency  of  scenery  and  show,  which,  when  existing  in 
its  utmost  splendour,  divides  the  interest  of  the  piece  in  the  mind 
of  the  ignorant,  and  rarely  affords  much  pleasure  to  a  spectator  of 
taste,  may  have  been  rather  an  advantage  to  the  infant  Drama. 
The  spectators  having  nothing  to  withdraw  their  attention  from  the 
immediate  business  of  the  piece,  gave  it  their  full  and  uninter- 
rupted attention.  And  here  it  may  not  be  premature  to  enquire 
into  the  characteristical  difference  between  the  audiences  of  the 
present  day  and  of  those  earlier  theatrical  ages,  when  the  Drama 
boasted  not  only  the  names  of  Shakspeare,  of  Massinger,  of  Jonson, 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  of  Shirley,  of  Ford  ;  but  others  of  sub- 
ordinate degree,  the  meanest  of  whom  shows  occasionally  more 
fire  than  warms  whole  reams  of  modern  plays.  This  will  probably 


ESSAY  OAT  THE  DRAMA.  507 

be  found  to  rest  on  the  varied  and  contrasted  feelings  with  which 
the  audience  of  ancient  and  that  of  modern  days  attend  the  prog- 
ress of  the  scene. 

Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  certain,  than  that  the  general  cast  of 
theatrical  composition  must  receive  its  principal  bent  and  colour- 
ing from  the  taste  of  the  audience. 

"The  Drama's  laws,  the  Drama's  patrons  give; 
For  those  who  live  to  please,  must  please  to  live." 

JOHNSON'S  Prologue,  I747-7 

But  though  this  be  an  undeniable,  and  in  some  respects  a 
melancholy  truth,  it  is  not  less  certain,  that  .genius,  labouring  in 
behalf  of  the  public,  possesses  the  power  of  re-action,  and  of  in- 
fluencing, in  its  turn,  that  taste  to  which  it  is  in  some  respects 
obliged  to  conform  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  play-wright,  who 
aims  only  to  catch  the  passing  plaudit  and  the  profit  of  a  season,  by 
addressing  himself  exclusively  to  the  ruling  predilections  of  the 
audience,  degrades  the  public  taste  still  farther  by  the  gross  food 
which  he  ministers  to  it ;  unless  it  shall  be  supposed  that  he  may 
contribute  involuntarily  to  rouse  it  from  its  degeneracy,  by  cram- 
ming it  even  to  satiety  and  loathing.  This  action,  therefore,  and 
re-action,  of  the  taste  of  the  age  on  dramatic  writing,  and  vice 
versa,  must  both  be  kept  in  view,  when  treating  of  the  difference 
betwixt  the  days  of  Shakspeare  and  our  own. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  leading  distinction  betwixt  the  ancient  and 
modern  audiences,  that  the  former  came  to  listen,  and  to  admire ; 
to  fling  the  reins  of  their  imaginations  into  the  hands  of  the  author 
and  actors,  and  to  be  pleased,  like  the  reader  to  whom  Sterne 
longed  to  do  homage,  "  they  knew  not  why,  and  cared  not  where- 
fore." The  novelty  of  dramatic  entertainments  (for  there  elapsed 
only  about  twenty  years  betwixt  the  date  of  Gammer  Gurton's 
Needle,  accounted  the  earliest  English  play,8  and  the  rise  of 

7  Prologue  spoken  at  the  opening  of  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  1 747.     Read 
•we  that  for  those  who. 

8  See  Note  2. 


508  SIR    WALTER   SCOTT. 

Shakspeare)  must  have  had  its  natural  effect  upon  the  audience. 
The  sun  of  Shakspeare  arose  almost  without  a  single  gleam  of  in- 
tervening twilight ;  and  it  was  no  wonder  that  the  audience,  intro- 
duced to  this  enchanting  and  seductive  art  at  once,  under  such  an 
effulgence  of  excellence,  should  have  been  more  disposed  to  won- 
der than  to  criticise  ;  to  admire  —  or  rather  to  adore  — than  to 
measure  the  height,  or  ascertain  the  course,  of  the  luminary  which 
diffused  such  glory  around  him.  The  great  number  of  theatres 
in  London,  and  the  profusion  of  varied  talent  which  was  dedicated 
to  this  service,  attest  the  eagerness  of  the  public  to  enjoy  the  en- 
tertainments of  the  scene.  The  ruder  amusements  of  the  age  lost 
their  attraction ;  and  the  royal  bear-ward  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
lodged  a  formal  complaint  at  the  feet  of  her  majesty,  that  the  play- 
houses had  seduced  the  audience  from  his  periodical  bear-bait- 
ings !  This  fact  is  worth  a  thousand  conjectures ;  and  we  can 
hardly  doubt,  that  the  converts,  transported  by  their  improving 
taste  from  the  bear-garden  to  the  theatre,  must,  generally  speaking, 
have  felt  their  rude  minds  subdued  and  led  captive  by  the  supe- 
rior intelligence,  which  not  only  placed  on  the  stage  at  pleasure 
all  ranks,  all  ages,  all  tempers,  all  passions  of  mere  humanity,  but 
extended  its  powers  beyond  the  bounds  of  time  and  space,  and 
seemed  to  render  visible  to  mortal  eyes  the  secrets  of  the  invisible 
world.  We  may,  perhaps,  form  the  best  guess  of  the  feelings  of 
Shakespeare's  contemporary  audience,  by  recollecting  the  emotions 
of  any  rural  friend  of  rough,  but  sound  sense,  and  ardent  feelings, 
whom  we  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  conduct  to  a  theatre  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  It  may  be  well  imagined,  that  such  a 
spectator  thinks  little  of  the  three  dramatic  unities,  of  which 
Aristotle  says  so  little,  and  his  commentators  and  followers  talk  so 
much ;  and  that  the  poet  and  the  performers  have  that  enviable 
influence  over  his  imagination,  which  transports  him  from  place  to 
place  at  pleasure ;  crowds  years  into  the  course  of  hours,  and 
interests  him  in  the  business  of  each  scene,  however  disconnected 
from  the  others.  His  eyes  are  riveted  to  the  stage,  his  ears  drink 
in  the  accents  of  the  speakers,  and  he  experiences  in  his  mature 


ESSAY  ON   THE   DRAMA.  509 

age,  what  we  have  all  felt  in  childhood  —  a  sort  of  doubt  whether 
the  beings  and  business  of  the  scene  be  real  or  fictitious.  In  this 
state  of  delightful  fascination,  Shakspeare  and  the  gigantic  dra- 
matic champions  of  his  age  found  the  British  public  at  large  ;  and 
how  they  availed  themselves  of  the  advantages  which  so  favourable 
a  temper  afforded  them,  their  works  will  show  so  long  as  the  lan- 
guage of  Britain  continues  to  be  read.9  It  is  true  that  the  enthu- 
siastic glow  of  the  public  admiration,  like  the  rays  of  a  tropical  sun 
darted  upon  a  rich  soil,  called  up  in  profusion  weeds  as  well  as 
flowers ;  and  that,  spoiled  in  some  degree  by  the  indulgent  accep- 
tation which  attended  their  efforts,  even  our  most  admired  writers 
of  Elizabeth's  age  not  unfrequently  exceeded  the  bounds  of  criti- 
cal nicety,  and  even  of  common  taste  and  decorum.  But  these 
eccentricities  were  atoned  for  by  a  thousand  beauties,  to  which, 
fettered  by  the  laws  of  the  classic  Drama,  the  authors  would 
hardly  have  aspired,  or  aspiring,  would  hardly  have  attained.  All 
of  us  know  and  feel  how  much  the  exercise  of  our  powers,  espe- 
cially those  which  rest  on  keen  feelings  and  self-confidence,  is 
dependent  upon  a  favourable  reception  from  those  for  whom  they 
are  put  in  action.  Every  one  has  observed  how  a  cold  brow  can 
damp  the  brilliancy  of  wit,  and  fetter  the  flow  of  eloquence ;  and 
how  both  are  induced  to  send  forth  sallies  corresponding  in 
strength  and  fire,  upon  being  received  by  the  kindred  enthusiasm 
of  those  whom  they  have  addressed.  And  thus,  if  we  owe  to  the 
indiscriminate  admiration  with  which  the  Drama  was  at  first  re- 
ceived, the  irregularities  of  the  authors  by  whom  it  was  practised, 
we  also  stand  indebted  to  it,  in  all  probability,  for  many  of  its  beau- 
ties, which  became  of  rare  occurrence,  when,  by  a  natural,  and 
indeed  a  necessary  change,  satiated  admiration  began  to  give  way 
to  other  feelings. 

When  a  child  is  tired  of  playing  with  a  new  toy,  its  next  delight 
is  to  examine  how  it  is  constructed ;  and,  in  like  manner,  so  soon  as 
the  first  burst  of  public  admiration  is  over  with  respect  to  any  new 

9  See  note  on  the  style  of  the  drama,  quoted  from  JEFFREY,  in  Black's  edi- 
tion of  SCOTT'S  Miscellaneous  Works,  Vol.  VI.  p.  349. 


510  SIX    WALTER   SCOTT. 

mode  of  composition,  the  next  impulse  prompts  us  to  analyze  and 
to  criticise  what  was  at  first  the  subject  of  vague  and  indiscriminate 
wonder.  In  the  first  instance,  the  toy  is  generally  broken  to 
pieces ;  in  the  other,  while  the  imagination  of  the  authors  is  sub- 
jected to  the  rigid  laws  of  criticism,  the  public  generally  lose  in 
genius  what  they  may  gain  in  point  of  taste.  The  author  who 
must  calculate  upon  severe  criticism,  turns  his  thoughts  more  to 
avoid  faults  than  to  attain  excellence ;  as  he  who  is  afraid  to 
stumble  must  avoid  rapid  motion.  The  same  process  takes  place 
in  all  the  fine  arts  :  their  first  productions  are  distinguished  by 
boldness  and  irregularity;  those  which  succeed,  by  a  better  and 
more  correct  taste,  but  also  by  inferior  and  less  original  genius. 

The  original  school  founded  by  Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jonson, 
continued  by  Massinger,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Shirley,  Ford, 
and  others,  whose  compositions  are  distinguished  by  irregularity 
as  well  as  genius,  was  closed  by  the  breaking  out  of  the  great  civil 
war  in  1642.  The  stage  had  been  the  constant  object  of  reproba- 
tion and  abhorrence  on  the  part  of  the  Puritans,  and  its  professors 
had  no  favour  to  expect  at  their  hands  if  victorious.  We  read, 
therefore,  with  interest,  but  without  surprise,  that  almost  all  the 
actors  took  up  arms  in  behalf  of  their  old  master  King  Charles,  in 
whose  service  most  of  them  perished.  Robinson,  a  principal 
actor  at  the  Blackfriars,  was  killed  by  Harrison  in  cold  blood  and 
under  the  application  of  a  text  of  scripture,  —  "  Cursed  is  he  that 
doeth  the  work  of  the  Lord  negligently."  10  A  few  survivors  en- 
deavoured occasionally  to  practise  their  art  in  secrecy  and  obscu- 
rity, but  were  so  frequently  discovered,  plundered,  and  stripped 
by  the  soldiers,  that  "  Enter  the  redcoat,  Exit  hat  and  cloak,"  was 
too  frequent  a  stage  direction.  Sir  William  Davenant  endeavoured 
to  evade  the  severe  zealots  of  the  time,  by  representing  a  sort  of 
opera,  said  to  have  been  the  first  Drama  in  which  movable  scenery 
was  introduced  upon  the  stage.  Even  the  cavaliers  of  the  more 
grave  sort  disapproved  of  the  revival  of  these  festive  entertain- 
ments during  the  unstable  and  melancholy  period  of  the  interreg- 

10  Jer.  xlviii.  10.     Read  deceitfully  for  negligently. 


ESSAY  ON  THE  DRAMA.  511 

num.  "  I  went,"  says  the  excellent  Evelyn,  in  his  Diary,  5th 
May,  1658,  "to  see  a  new  opera  after  the  Italian  way,  in  recita- 
tion, music,  and  scenes,  much  inferior  to  the  Italian  composure 
and  magnificence ;  but  it  was  prodigious  that  in  such  a  time  of 
public  consternation,  such  a  variety  should  be  kept  up  or  per- 
mitted, and  being  engaged  with  company,  could  not  decently 
resist  the  going  to  see  it,  though  my  heart  smote  me  for  it." 
Davenant's  theatrical  enterprise,  abhorred  by  the  fanaticism  of 
the  one  party,  and  ill  adapted  to  the  dejected  circumstances  of 
the  other,  was  not  probably  very  successful. 


XXV. 

SAMUEL    TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

(1772-1834.) 

BIOGRAPHIA  LITER  ARIA. 

[Written  about  1817.] 

CHAPTER  XXI.  —  REMARKS  ON  THE  PRESENT  MODE  OF  CONDUCT- 
ING CRITICAL  JOURNALS. 

LONG  have  I  wished  to  see  a  fair  and  philosophical  inquisition 
into  the  character  of  Wordsworth,  as  a  poet,  on  the  evidence  of 
his  published  works ;  and  a  positive,  not  a  comparative,  apprecia- 
tion of  their  characteristic  excellencies,  deficiencies,  and  defects. 
I  know  no  claim,  that  the  mere  opinion  of  any  individual  can  have 
to  weigh  down  the  opinion  of  the  author  himself,  against  the  proba- 
bility of  whose  parental  partiality  we  ought  to  set  that  of  his  having 
thought  longer  and  more  deeply  on  the  subject.  But  I  should  call 
that  investigation  fair  and  philosophical  in  which  the  critic  an- 
nounces and  endeavours  to  establish  the  principles  which  he  holds 
for  the  foundation  of  poetry  in  general,  with  the  specification  of 
these  in  their  application  to  the  different  classes  of  poetry.  Hav- 
ing thus  prepared  his  canons  of  criticism  for  praise  and  condemna- 
tion, he  would  proceed  to  particularize  the  most  striking  passages 
to  which  he  deems  them  applicable,  faithfully  noticing  the  fre- 
quent or  infrequent  recurrence  of  similar  merits  or  defects,  and  as 
faithfully  distinguishing  what  is  characteristic  from  what  is  acciden- 
tal, or  a  mere  flagging  of  the  wing.  Then  if  his  promises  be  ra- 
tional, his  deductions  legitimate,  ancj  his  conclusions  justly  applied, 
512 


BIOGRAPHIA   LITER  ARIA.  513 

the  reader,  and  possibly  the  poet  himself,  may  adopt  his  judgment 
in  the  light  of  judgment  and  in  the  independence  of  free-agency. 
If  he  has  erred,  he  presents  his  errors  in  a  definite  place  and 
tangible  form,  and  holds  the  torch  and  guides  the  way  to  their 
detection. 

I  most  willingly  admit,  and  estimate  at  a  high  value,  the  services 
which  the  EDINBURGH  REVIEW,  and  others  formed  afterwards  on 
the  same  plan,  have  rendered  to  society  in  the  diffusion  of  knowl- 
edge. I  think  the  commencement  of  the  EDINBURGH  REVIEW 
an  important  epoch  in  periodical  criticism ;  and  that  it  has  a 
claim  upon  the  gratitude  of  the  literary  republic,  and  indeed  of 
the  reading  public  at  large,  for  having  originated  the  scheme  of  re- 
viewing those  books  only,  which  are  susceptible  and  deserving  of 
argumentative  criticism.  Not  less  meritorious,  and  far  more  faith- 
fully and  in  general  far  more  ably  executed,  is  their  plan  of  sup- 
plying the  vacant  place  of  the  trash  or  mediocrity,  wisely  left  to 
sink  into  oblivion  by  its  own  weight,  with  original  essays  on  the 
most  interesting  subjects  of  the  time,  religious,  or  political,  in 
which  the  titles  of  the  books  or  pamphlets  prefixed  furnish  only  the 
name  and  occasion  of  the  disquisition.  I  do  not  arraign  the  keen- 
ness, or  asperity  of  its  damnatory  style,  in  and  for  itself,  as  long  as 
the  author  is  addressed  or  treated  as  the  mere  impersonation  of 
the  work  then  under  trial.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  them  on  this 
account,  as  long  as  no  personal  allusions  are  admitted,  and  no  re- 
commitment (for  new  trial)  of  juvenile  performances  that  were 
published,  perhaps  forgotten,  many  years  before  the  commence- 
ment of  the  review ;  since  for  the  forcing  back  of  such  works 
to  public  notice  no  motives  are  easily  assignable  but  such  as  are 
furnished  to  the  critic  by  his  own  personal  malignity,  or  what  is 
still  WOKSC,  by  a  habit  of  malignity  in  the  form  of  mere  wantonness. 

"  No  private  grudge  they  need,  no  personal  spite : 
The  viva  sectio  is  its  own  delight ! 
All  enmity,  all  envy,  they  disclaim, 
Disinterested  thieves  of  our  good  name; 
Cool,  sober  murderers  of  their  neighbor's  fame !  "  —  s.  T.  c. 


514  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Every  censure,  every  sarcasm  respecting  a  publication  which 
the  critic,  with  the  criticized  work  before  him,  can  make  good,  is 
the  critic's  right.  The  writer  is  authorized  to  reply,  but  not  to 
complain.  Neither  can  any  one  prescribe  to  the  critic,  how  soft  or 
how  hard,  how  friendly  or  how  bitter,  shall  be  the  phrases  which 
he  is  to  select  for  the  expression  of  such  reprehension  or  ridicule. 
The  critic  must  know  what  effect  it  is  his  object  to  produce  and 
with  a  view  to  this  effect  must  he  weigh  his  words.  But  as  soon 
as  the  critic  betrays  that  he  knows  more  of  his  author  than  the 
author's  publications  could  have  told  him ;  as  soon  as  from  this 
more  intimate  knowledge,  elsewhere  obtained,  he  avails  himself  of 
the  slightest  trait  against  the  author ;  his  censure  instantly  becomes 
personal  injury,  his  sarcasms  personal  insults.  He  ceases  to  be  a 
critic,  and  takes  on  him  the  most  contemptible  character  to  which 
a  rational  creature  can  be  degraded,  that  of  a  gossip,  backbiter, 
and  pasquillant : 1  but  with  this  heavy  aggravation,  that  he  steals 
the  unquiet,  the  deforming  passions  of  the  world  into  the  museum, 
into  the  very  place  which,  next  to  the  chapel  and  oratory,  should 
be  our  sanctuary  and  secure  place  of  refuge ;  offers  abominations 
on  the  altar  of  the  Muses ;  and  makes  its  sacred  paling  the  very 
circle  in  which  he  conjures  up  the  lying  and  profane  spirit. 

This  determination  of  unlicensed  personality,  and  of  permitted 
and  legitimate  censure  (which  I  owe  in  part  to  the  illustrious  Les- 
sing,  himself  a  model  of  acute,  spirited,  sometimes  stinging,  but 
always  argumentative  and  honourable,  criticism)  is  beyond  con- 
troversy the  true  one  :  and  though  I  would  not  myself  exercise 
all  the  rights  of  the  latter,  yet,  let  but  the  former  be  excluded,  I 
submit  myself  to  its  exercise  in  the  hands  of  others,  without 
complaint  and  without  resentment. 

Let  a  communication  be  formed  between  any  number  of»learned 
men  in  the  various  branches  of  science  and  literature  ;  and  whether 
the  president  and  central  committee  be  in  London,  or  Edinburgh, 
if  only  they  previously  lay  aside  their  individuality  and  pledge 
themselves  inwardly,  as  well  as  ostensibly,  to  administer  judgment 

1  lampooner. 


BIOGRAPHIA   LITERARIA.  515 

according  to  a  constitution  and  code  of  laws  :  and  if  by  grounding 
this  code  on  the  two-fold  basis  of  universal  morals  and  philosophic 
reason,  independent  of  all  foreseen  application  to  particular  works 
and  authors,  they  obtain  the  right  to  speak  each  as  the  represen- 
tative of  their  body  corporate ;  they  shall  have  honour  and  good 
wishes  from  me,  and  I  shall  accord  to  them  their  fair  dignities, 
though  self-assumed,  not  less  cheerfully  than  if  I  could  inquire 
concerning  them  in  the  herald's  office,  or  turn  to  them  in  the  book 
of  peerage.  However  loud  may  be  the  outcries  for  prevented  or 
subverted  reputation,  however  numerous  and  impatient  the  com- 
plaints of  merciless  severity  and  insupportable  despotism,  I  shall 
neither  feel,  nor  utter  aught  but  to  the  defence  and  justification  of 
the  critical  machine.  Should  any  literary  Quixote  find  himself 
provoked  by  its  sounds  and  regular  movements,  I  should  admonish 
him  with  Sancho  Panza,  that  it  is  no  giant  but  a  windmill ;  there  it 
stands  on  its  own  place,  and  its  own  hillock,  never  goes  out  of  its 
way  to  attack  any  one,  and  to  none  and  from  none  either  gives  or 
asks  assistance.  When  the  public  press  has  poured  in  any  parts  of 
its  produce  between  its  mill-stones,  it  grinds  it  off,  one  man's  sack 
the  same  as  another,  and  with  whatever  wind  may  happen  to  be 
then  blowing.  All  the  two-and-thirty  winds  are  alike  its  friends. 
Of  the  whole  wide  atmosphere  it  does  not  desire  a  single  finger- 
breadth  more  than  what  is  necessary  for  its  sails  to  turn  round  in. 
But  this  space  must  be  left  free  and  unimpeded.  Gnats,  beetles, 
wasps,  butterflies,  and  the  whole  tribe  of  ephemerals  and  insignifi- 
cants,  may  flit  in  and  out  and  between ;  may  hum,  and  buzz,  and 
jarr,  may  shrill  their  tiny  pipes,  and  wind  their  puny  horns,  un- 
chastised  and  unnoticed.  But  idlers  and  bravadoes  of  larger  size 
and  prouder  show  must  beware  how  they  place  themselves  within 
its  sweep.  Much  less  may  they  presume  to  lay  hands  on  the  sails, 
the  strength  of  which  is  neither  greater  nor  less  than  as  the  wind 
is,  which  drives  them  round.  Whomsoever  the  remorseless  arm 
slings  aloft,  or  whirls  along  with  it  in  the  air,  he  has  himself  alone 
to  blame ;  though,  when  the  same  arm  throws  him  from  it,  it  will 
more  often  double  than  break  the  force  of  his  fall. 


516  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Putting  aside  the  too  manifest  and  too  frequent  interference  of 
national  party,  and  even  personal  predilection  or  aversion ;  and 
reserving  for  deeper  feelings  those  worse  and  more  criminal  intru- 
sions into  the  sacredness  of  private  life,  which  not  seldom  merit 
legal  rather  than  literary  chastisement,  the  two  principal  objects  and 
occasions  which  I  find  for  blame  and  regret  in  the  conduct  of  the 
review  in  question  are  :  first,  its  unfaithfulness  to  its  own  announced 
and  excellent  plan,  by  subjecting  to  criticism  works  neither  inde- 
cent nor  immoral,  yet  of  such  trifling  importance  even  in  point  of 
size  and,  according  to  the  critic's  own  verdict,  so  devoid  of  all 
merit,  as  must  excite  in  the  most  candid  mind  the  suspicion,  either 
that  dislike  or  vindictive  feelings  were  to  increase  the  sale  of  the 
review  by  flattering  the  malignant  passions  of  human  nature.  That 
I  may  not  myself  become  subject  to  the  charge  which  I  am  bring- 
ing against  others,  by  an  accusation  without  proof,  I  refer  to  the 
article  on  Dr.  Rennell's  sermon  in  the  very  first  number  of  The 
EDINBURGH  REVIEW  as  an  illustration  of  my  meaning.  If  in  look- 
ing through  all  the  succeeding  volumes  the  reader  should  find  this 
a  solitary  instance,  I  must  submit  to  that  painful  forfeiture  of 
esteem,  which  awaits  a  groundless  or  exaggerated  charge. 

The  second  point  of  objection  belongs  to  this  review  only  in 
common  with  all  other  works  of  periodical  criticism  ;  at  least,  it 
applies  in  common  to  the  general  system  of  all,  whatever  excep- 
tion there  may  be  in  favour  of  particular  articles.  Or  if  it  attaches 
to  THE  EDINBURGH  REVIEW  and  to  its  only  corrival  (THE  QUAR- 
TERLY), with  any  peculiar  force,  this  results  from  the  superiority 
of  talent,  acquirement,  and  information  which  both  have  so  unde- 
niably displayed ;  and  which  doubtless  deepens  the  regret  though 
not  the  blame.  I  am  referring  to  the  substitution  of  assertion  for 
argument ;  to  the  frequency  of  arbitrary  and  sometimes  petulant 
verdicts,  not  seldom  unsupported  even  by  a  single  quotation  from 
the  work  condemned,  which  might  at  least  have  explained  the  critic's 
meaning,  if  it  did  not  prove  the  justice  of  his  sentence.  Even 
where  this  is  not  the  case,  the  extracts  are  too  often  made  without 
reference  to  any  general  grounds  or  rules  from  which  the  faultiness 


BIOGRAPHIA   LITER  ART  A.  517 

or  inadmissibility  of  the  qualities  attributed  may  be  deduced ;  and 
without  any  attempt  to  show  that  the  qualities  are  attributable  to 
the  passage  extracted.  I  have  met  with  such  extracts  from  Mr. 
Wordsworth's  poems,  annexed  to  such  assertions,  as  led  me  to 
imagine  that  the  reviewer,  having  written  his  critique  before  he 
had  read  the  work,  had  then  pricked  with  a  pin  for  passages  where- 
with to  illustrate  the  various  branches  of  his  preconceived  opinions. 
By  what  principle  of  rational  choice  can  we  suppose  a  critic  to  have 
been  directed  (at  least  in  a  Christian  country,  and  himself,  we  hope, 
a  Christian)  who  gives  the  following  lines,  portraying  the  fervour 
of  solitary  devotion  excited  by  the  magnificent  display  of  the 
Almighty's  works,  as  a  proof  and  example  of  an  author's  tendency 
to  downright  ravings,  and  absolute  unintelligibility? 

"  O  then  what  soul  was  his,  when  on  the  tops 
Of  the  high  mountains  he  beheld  the  sun 
Rise  up,  and  bathe  the  world  in  light !     He  looked  — 
Ocean  and  earth,  the  solid  frame  of  earth, 
And  ocean's  liquid  mass,  beneath  him  lay 
In  gladness  and  deep  joy.     The  clouds  were  touched, 
And  in  their  silent  faces  did  he  read 
Unutterable  love.     Sound  needed  none, 
Nor  any  voice  of  joy:  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle  !  sensation,  soul  and  form, 
All  melted  into  him;   they  swallowed  up 
His  animal  being;   in  them  did  he  live, 
And  by  them  did  he  live :  they  were  his  life."  2 

Can  it  be  expected  that  either  the  author  or  his  admirers  should 
be  induced  to  pay  any  serious  attention  to  decisions  which  prove 
nothing  but  the  pitiable  state  of  the  critic's  own  taste  and  sensi- 
bility ?  On  opening  the  review  they  see  a  favourite  passage,  of  the 
force  and  truth  of  which  they  had  an  intuitive  certainty  in  their 
own  inward  experience  confirmed,  if  confirmation  it  could  receive, 
by  the  sympathy  of  their  most  enlightened  friends ;  some  of 
whom,  perhaps,  even  in  the  world's  opinion,  hold  a  higher  intel- 
lectual rank  than  the  critic  himself  would  presume  to  claim.  And 

2  Excursion,  Book  I.  —  s.  c.      First  lines  changed  later. 


518  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

this  very  passage  they  find  selected  as  the  characteristic  effusion 
of  a  mind  deserted  by  reason,  as  furnishing  evidence  that  the  writer 
was  raving,  or  he  could  not  have  thus  strung  words  together  without 
sense  or  purpose  !  No  diversity  of  taste  seems  capable  of  explain- 
ing such  a  contrast  in  judgment. 

That  I  had  over-rated  the  merit  of  a  passage  or  poem,  that  I 
had  erred  concerning  the  degree  of  its  excellence,  I  might  be  easily 
induced  to  believe  or  apprehend.  But  that  lines,  the  sense  of 
which  I  had  analyzed  and  found  consonant  with  all  the  best  con- 
victions of  my  understanding;  and  the  imagery  and  diction  of 
which  had  collected  round  those  convictions  my  noblest  as  well 
as  my  most  delightful  feelings  ;  that  I  should  admit  such  lines  to 
be  mere  nonsense  or  lunacy,  is  too  much  for  the  most  ingenious 
arguments  to  effect.  But  that  such  a  revolution  of  taste  should 
be  brought  about  by  a  few  broad  assertions,  seems  little  less  than 
impossible.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  require  an  effort  of  charity 
not  to  dismiss  the  criticism  with  the  aphorism  of  the  wise  man, 
in  animam  malevolam  sapientia  hand  intrare  potest? 

What  then  if  this  very  critic  should  have  cited  a  large  number 
of  single  lines  and  even  of  long  paragraphs,  which  he  himself 
acknowledges  to  possess  eminent  and  original  beauty?  What  if 
he  himself  has  owned  that  beauties  as  great  are  scattered  in 
abundance  throughout  the  whole  book?  And  yet,  though  under 
this  impression,  should  have  commenced  his  critique  in  vulgar 
exultation  with  a  prophecy  meant  to  secure  its  own  fulfilment  ? 
With  a  "This  won't  do  !  "  What?  if  after  such  acknowledgments 
extorted  from  his  own  judgment  he  should  proceed  from  charge 
to  charge  of  tameness  and  raving  flights  and  flatness ;  and  at 
length,  consigning  the  author  to  the  house  of  incurables,  should 
conclude  with  a  strain  of  rudest  contempt  evidently  grounded  in 
the  distempered  state  of  his  own  moral  associations?  Suppose 
too  all  this  done  without  a  single  leading  principle  established  or 
even  announced,  and  without  any  one  attempt  at  argumentative 
deduction,  though  the  poet  had  presented  a  more  than  usual 

8  -wisdom  cannot  enter  a  malevolent  soul. 


BIOGRAPHIA   LITERARIA.  519 

opportunity  for  it,  by  having  previously  made  public  his  own 
principles  of  judgment  in  poetry,  and  supported  them  by  a  con- 
nected train  of  reasoning ! 

The  office  and  duty  of  the  poet  is  to  select  the  most  dignified 

as  well  as 

"The  gayest,  happiest  attitude  of  things."  4 

The  reverse,  for  in  all  cases  a  reverse  is  possible,  is  the  appro- 
priate business  of  burlesque  and  travesty,  a  predominant  taste  for 
which  has  been  always  deemed  a  mark  of  a  low  and  degraded  mind. 
When  I  was  at  Rome,  among  many  other  visits  to  the  tomb  of  Julius 
II.  I  went  thither  once  with  a  Prussian  artist,  a  man  of  genius  and 
great  vivacity  of  feeling.  As  we  were  gazing  on  Michael  Angelo's 
MOSES,  our  conversation  turned  on  the  horns  and  beard  of  that 
stupendous  statue  ;  of  the  necessity  of  each  to  support  the  other ; 
of  the  superhuman  effect  of  the  former,  and  the  necessity  of  the 
existence  of  both  to  give  a  harmony  and  integrity  both  to  the 
image  and  the  feeling  excited  by  it.  Conceive  them  removed, 
and  the  statue  would  become  #«-natural,  without  being  super- 
natural.  We  called  to  mind  the  horns  of  the  rising  sun ;  and  I 
repeated  the  noble  passage  from  Taylor's  HOLY  DYING.  That 
horns  were  the  emblem  of  power  and  sovereignty  among  the 
Eastern  nations,  and  are  still  retained  as  such  in  Abyssinia ;  the 
Achelous  of  the  ancient  Greeks ;  and  the  probable  ideas  and  feel- 
ings that  originally  suggested  the  mixture  of  the  human  and  the 
brute  form  in  the  figure,  by  which  they  realize  the  idea  of  their 
mysterious  Pan,  as  representing  intelligence  blended  with  a  darker 
power,  deeper,  mightier,  and  more  universal  than,  the  conscious 
intellect  of  man ;  than  intelligence  ;  —  all  these  thoughts  and  recol- 
lections passed  in  procession  before  our  minds.  My  companion, 
who  possessed  more  than  his  share  of  the  hatred  which  his  country- 
men bore  to  the  French,  had  just  observed  to  me,  "  A  Frenchman, 
Sir,  is  the  only  animal  in  the  human  shape  that  by  no  possibility 
can  lift  itself  up  to  religion  and  poetry :  "  when  lo  !  two  French 

*  AKENSIDE'S  Pleasures  of  Imagination,  Book  I,  line  20.  —  s.  c. 


520  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

officers  of  distinction  and  rank  entered  the  church  !  "  Mark  you," 
whispered  the  Prussian,  "  the  first  thing  which  those  scoundrels 
will  notice  —  for  they  will  begin  by  instantly  noticing  the  statue 
in  parts,  without  one  moment's  pause  of  admiration  impressed 
by  the  whole  —  will  be  the  horns  and  the  beard.  And  the  asso- 
ciations which  they  will  immediately  connect  with  them  will  be 
those  of  a  he-goat.  .  .  ."  Never  did  man  guess  more  luckily.  Had 
he  inherited  a  portion  of  the  great  legislator's  prophetic  powers, 
whose  statue  we  had  been  contemplating,  he  could  scarcely  have 
uttered  words  more  coincident  with  the  result ;  for  even  as  he  had 
said,  so  it  came  to  pass. 

In  THE  EXCURSION  the  poet  has  introduced  an  old  man,  born  in 
humble  but  not  abject  circumstances,  who  had  enjoyed  more  than 
usual  advantages  of  education,  both  from  books  and  from  the  more 
awful  discipline  of  nature.  This  person  he  represents  as  having 
been  driven  by  the  restlessness  of  fervid  feelings,  and  from  a  crav- 
ing intellect,  to  an  itinerant  life ;  and  as  having  in  consequence 
passed  the  larger  portion  of  his  time,  from  earliest  manhood,  in 
villages  and  hamlets  from  door  to  door. 

"  A  vagrant  Merchant  bent  beneath  his  load."  6 

Now  whether  this  be  a  character  appropriate  to  a  lofty  didactic 
poem,  is  perhaps  questionable.  It  presents  a  fair  subject  for  con- 
troversy ;  and  the  question  is  to  be  determined  by  the  congruity  or 
incongruity  of  such  a  character  with  what  shall  be  proved  to  be  the 
essential  constituents  of  poetry.  But  surely  the  critic  who,  passing 
by  all  the  opportunities  which  such  a  mode  of  life  would  present  to 
such  a  man  ;  all  the  advantages  of  the  liberty  of  nature,  of  solitude, 
and  of  solitary  thought ;  all  the  varieties  of  places  and  seasons, 
through  which  his  track  had  lain,  with  all  the  varying  imagery  they 
bring  with  them ;  and  lastly,  all  the  observations  of  men, 

"  Their  manners,  their  enjoyments,  and  pursuits, 
Their  passions  and  their  feelings,  —  "  ° 

6  Book  I.  — s.  c.     Changed  later.  6  Book  i.  —  s.  c. 


BIOGRAPHIA  LITERARIA.  521 

which  the  memory  of  these  yearly  journeys  must  have  given  and 
recalled  to  such  a  mind  —  the  critic,  I  say,  who  from  the  multi- 
tude of  possible  associations  should  pass  by  all  these  in  order  to 
fix  his  attention  exclusively  on  the  pin-papers,  and  stay- tapes, 
which  might  have  been  among  the  wares  of  his  pack ;  this  critic, 
in  my  opinion,  can  not  be  thought  to  possess  a  much  higher  or 
much  healthier  state  of  moral  feeling  than  the  Frenchmen  above 
recorded. 


XXVI. 

WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

(1778-1830.) 

TABLE-TALK:  OPINIONS  ON  BOOKS,  MEN,  AND  THINGS. 

[Written  about  1821-22.] 

ESSAY  XIII.  —  ON  APPLICATION  TO  STUDY. 

No  one  is  idle,  who  can  do  anything.  It  is  conscious  inability, 
or  the  sense  of  repeated  failure,  that  prevents  us  from  undertaking, 
or  deters  us  from  the  prosecution  of  any  work. 

Wilson  the  painter  might  be  mentioned  as  an  exception  to  this 
rule ;  for  he  was  said  to  be  an  indolent  man.  After  bestowing  a 
few  touches  on  a  picture,  he  grew  tired,  and  said  to  any  friend 
who  called  in,  "Now,  let  us  go  somewhere!"  But  the  fact  is, 
that  Wilson  could  not  finish  his  pictures  minutely ;  and  that  those 
few  masterly  touches,  carelessly  thrown  in  of  a  morning,  were  all 
that  he  could  do.  The  rest  would  have  been  labour  lost.  Mor- 
land  has  been  referred  to  as  another  man  of  genius,  who  could 
only  be  brought  to  work  by  fits  and  snatches.  But  his  landscapes 
and  figures  (whatever  degree  of  merit  they  might  possess)  were 
mere  hasty  sketches ;  and  he  could  produce  all  that  he  was  capa- 
ble of,  in  the  first  half-hour,  as  well  as  in  twenty  years.  Why  be- 
stow additional  pains  without  additional  effect?  What  he  did  was 
from  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  from  the  lively  impression  of 
some  coarse,  but  striking  object ;  and  with  that  impulse  his  efforts 
ceased,  as  they  justly  ought.  There  is  no  use  in  labouring  invitd 
Minerva^ — nor  any  difficulty  in  it,  when  the  Muse  is  not  averse. 

1  when  Minerva  is  unwilling. 
522 


TABLE-TALK.  523 

"  The  labour  we  delight  in  physics  pain." 

Denner  finished  his  unmeaning  portraits  with  a  microscope,  and 
without  being  ever  weary  of  his  fruitless  task ;  for  the  essence  of 
his  genius  was  industry.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  courted  by  the 
Graces  and  by  Fortune,  was  hardly  ever  out  of  his  painting-room, 
and  lamented  a  few  days,  at  any  time  spent  at  a  friend's  house 
or  at  a  nobleman's  seat  in  the  country,  as  so  much  time  lost.  That 
darkly-illuminated  room  "  to  him  a  kingdom  was  :  "  his  pencil 
was  the  sceptre  that  he  wielded,  and  the  throne  on  which  his 
sitters  were  placed,  a  throne  for  Fame.  Here  he  felt  indeed  at 
home ;  here  the  current  of  his  ideas  flowed  full  and  strong ;  here 
he  felt  most  self-possession ;  most  command  over  others  ;  and  the 
sense  of  power  urged  him  on  to  his  delightful  task  with  a  sort  of 
vernal  cheerfulness  and  vigour,  even  in  the  decline  of  life.  The 
feeling  of  weakness  and  incapacity  would  have  made  his  hand  soon 
falter,  would  have  rebutted  him  from  his  object ;  or  had  the  can- 
vas mocked,  and  been  insensible  to  his  toil,  instead  of  gradually 
turning  to 

"  A  lucid  mirror,  in  which  nature  saw 
All  her  reflected  features," 

he  would,  like  so  many  others,  have  thrown  down  his  pencil  in 
despair,  or  proceeded  reluctantly,  without  spirit  and  without  suc- 
cess. Claude  Lorraine,  in  like  manner,  spent  whole  mornings 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber  or  in  his  study,  eliciting  beauty  after 
beauty,  adding  touch  to  touch,  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  per- 
fection, luxuriating  in  endless  felicity  —  not  merely  giving  the 
salient  points,  but  filling  up  the  whole  intermediate  space  with 
continuous  grace  and  beauty  !  What  farther  motive  was  necessary 
to  induce  him  to  persevere,  but  the  bounty  of  his  fate  ?  What 
greater  pleasure  could  he  seek  for,  than  that  of  seeing  the  perfect 
image  of  his  mind  reflected  in  the  work  of  his  hand  ?  But  as  is 
the  pleasure  and  the  confidence  produced  by  consummate  skill, 
so  is  the  pain  and  the  disheartening  effect  of  total  failure.  When 
for  the  fair  face  of  nature  we  only  see  an  unsightly  blot  issuing 


524  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

from  our  best  endeavours,  then  the  nerves  slacken,  the  tears  fill 
the  eyes,  and  the  painter  turns  away  from  his  art,  as  the  lover 
from  a  mistress  that  scorns  him.  Alas  !  how  many  such  have,  as 
the  poet  says, 

"  Begun  in  gladness; 
Whereof  has  come  in  the  end  despondency  and  madness  —  " 

not  for  want  of  will  to  proceed,  (oh,  no  !)  but  for  lack  of  power  ! 

Hence  it  is  that  those  often  do  best  (up  to  a  certain  point  of 
common-place  success)  who  have  least  knowledge  and  least  ambi- 
tion to  excel.  Their  taste  keeps  pace  with  their  capacity ;  and 
they  are  not  deterred  by  insurmountable  difficulties,  of  which  they 
have  no  idea.  I  have  known  artists  (for  instance)  of  considerable 
merit,  and  a  certain  native  rough  strength  and  resolution  of  mind, 
who  have  been  active  and  enterprizing  in  their  profession,  but  who 
never  seemed  to  think  of  any  works  but  those  which  they  had  in 
hand ;  they  never  spoke  of  a  picture,  or  appeared  to  have  seen 
one ;  to  them  Titian,  Raphael,  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  Correggio, 
were  as  if  they  had  never  been  :  no  tones,  mellowed  by  time  to  soft 
perfection,  lured  them  to  their  luckless  doom,  no  divine  forms 
baffled  their  vain  embrace ;  no  sound  of  immortality  rung  in  their 
ears,  or  drew  off  their  attention  from  the  calls  of  creditors  or  of 
hunger  :  they  walked  through  collections  of  the  finest  works,  like 
the  Children  in  the  Fiery  Furnace,  untouched,  unapproached. 
With  these  true  terra  filii 2  the  art  might  be  supposed  to  begin 
and  end  :  they  thought  only  of  the  subject  of  their  next  produc- 
tion, the  size  of  their  next  canvas,  the  grouping,  the  getting  in  of 
the  figures ;  and  conducted  their  work  to  its  conclusion  with  as 
little  distraction  of  mind  and  as  few  misgivings,  as  a  stage-coach- 
man conducts  a  stage,  or  a  carrier  delivers  a  bale  of  goods,  accord- 
ing to  its  destination.  Such  persons,  if  they  do  not  rise  above,  at 
least  seldom  sink  below  themselves.  They  do  not  soar  to  the 
"  highest  Heaven  of  invention,"  nor  penetrate  the  inmost  recesses 
of  the  heart ;  but  they  succeed  in  all  that  they  attempt  or  are 

2  sons  of  earth. 


TABLE-TALK.  525 

capable  of,  as  men  of  business  and  of  industry  in  their  calling. 
For  them  the  veil  of  the  Temple  of  Art  is  not  rent  asunder,  and 
it  is  well :  one  glimpse  of  the  Sanctuary,  of  the  Holy  of  the  Holies, 
might  palsy  their  hands,  and  bedim  their  sight  forever  after  !  I 
think  there  are  two  mistakes,  common  enough  on  this  subject, 
viz. :  That  men  of  genius,  or  of  first-rate  capacity,  do  little,  except 
by  intermittent  fits,  or  per  saltum  —  and  that  they  do  that  little  in 
a  slight  and  slovenly  manner.  There  may  be  instances  of  this  ;  but 
they  are  not  the  highest,  and  they  are  the  exceptions,  not  the  rule. 
On  the  contrary,  the  greatest  artists  have  in  general  been  the  most 
prolific  or  the  most  elaborate,  as  the  best  writers  have  been  fre- 
quently the  most  voluminous  as  well  as  indefatigable.  We  have  a 
great  living  instance  among  writers,  that  the  quality  of  a  man's 
productions  is  not  to  be  estimated  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  their 
quantity,  I  mean  in  the  Author  of  Waverley ;  the  fecundity  of 
whose  pen  is  no  less  admirable  than  its  felicity.  Shakespear  is 
another  instance  of  the  same  prodigality  of  genius  :  his  materials 
being  endlessly  poured  forth  with  no  niggard  or  fastidious  hand, 
and  the  mastery  of  the  execution  being  (in  many  respects  at  least) 
equal  to  the  boldness  of  the  design.  As  one  example  among 
others  that  I  might  cite  of  the  attention  which  he  gave  to  his  sub- 
ject, it  is  sufficient  to  observe,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  word  in  any 
of  his  more  striking  passages  that  can  be  altered  for  the  better. 
If  any  person,  for  instance,  is  trying  to  recollect  a  favourite  line, 
and  cannot  hit  upon  some  particular  expression,  it  is  in  vain  to 
think  of  substituting  any  other  so  good.  That  in  the  original  text 
is  not  merely  the  best,  but  it  seems  the  only  right  one.  I  will  stop 
to  illustrate  this  point  a  little.  I  was  at  a  loss  the  other  day  for 
the  line  in  Henry  V., 

"  Nice  customs  curtesy  to  great  kings. " 

I  could  not  recollect  the  word  nice:  I  tried  a  number  of  others, 
such  as  old,  grave,  &c.  —  they  would  none  of  them  do,  but  seemed 
all  heavy,  lumbering,  or  from  the  purpose  :  the  word  nice,  on  the 
contrary,  appeared  to  drop  into  its  place,  and  be  ready  to  assist  in 
paying  the  reverence  due.  Again, 


526  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

"  A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 
Of  him  that  hears  it." 

I  thought,  in  quoting  from  memory,  of  "  A  jest's  success,"  "  A 
jest's  renown"  &c.  I  then  turned  to  the  volume,  and  there  found 
the  very  word  that  of  all  others  expressed  the  idea.  Had  Shake- 
spear  searched  through  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  he  could 
not  have  lighted  on  another  to  convey  so  exactly  what  he  meant 
—  a  casual,  hollow,  sounding  success  !  I  could  multiply  such  exam- 
ples, but  that  I  am  sure  the  reader  will  easily  supply  them  himself ; 
and  they  show  sufficiently  that  Shakespear  was  not  (as  he  is  often 
represented)  a  loose  or  clumsy  writer.  The  bold,  happy  texture 
of  his  style,  in  which  every  word  is  prominent,  and  yet  cannot  be 
torn  from  its  place  without  violence,  any  more  than  a  limb  from 
the  body,  is  (one  should  think)  the  result  either  of  vigilant  pains- 
taking, or  of  unerring  intuitive  perception,  and  not  the  mark  of 
crude  conceptions,  or  "  the  random,  blindfold  blows  of  ignorance." 

There  cannot  be  a  greater  contradiction  to  the  common  preju- 
dice that  "  Genius  is  naturally  a  truant  and  a  vagabond,"  than  the 
astonishing  and  (on  the  hypothesis)  unaccountable  number  of 
chefs-d'oeuvre  left  behind  them  by  the  Old  Masters.  The  stream 
of  their  invention  supplies  the  taste  of  successive  generations  like  a 
river  :  they  furnish  a  hundred  Galleries,  and  preclude  competition, 
not  more  by  the  excellence  than  by  the  extent  of  their  perform- 
ances. Take  Raphael  and  Rubens  for  instance.  There  are  works 
of  theirs  in  single  Collections  enough  to  occupy  a  long  and  labori- 
ous life,  and  yet  their  works  are  spread  through  all  the  Collections 
of  Europe.  They  seem  to  have  cost  them  no  more  labour  than  if 
they  "  had  drawn  in  their  breath  and  puffed  it  forth  again."  But 
we  know  that  they  made  drawings,  studies,  sketches  of  all  the  prin- 
cipal of  these,  with  the  care  and  caution  of  the  merest  tyros  in  the 
art ;  and  they  remain  equal  proofs  of  their  capacity  and  diligence. 
The  Cartoons  of  Raphael  alone  might  have  employed  many  years, 
and  made  a  life  of  illustrious  labour,  though  they  look  as  if  they 
had  been  struck  off  at  a  blow,  and  are  not  a  tenth  part  of  what  he 
produced  in  his  short  but  bright  career.  Titian  and  Michael 


TABLE-TALK.  527 

Angelo  lived  longer ;  but  they  worked  as  hard  and  did  as  well. 
Shall  we  bring  in  competition  with  examples  like  these  some  trashy 
caricaturist,  or  idle  dauber,  who  has  no  sense  of  the  infinite  re- 
sources of  nature  or  art,  nor  consequently  any  power  to  employ 
himself  upon  them  for  any  length  of  time  or  to  any  purpose,  to 
prove  that  genius  and  regular  industry  are  incompatible  qualities  ? 
In  my  opinion,  the  very  superiority  of  the  works  of  the  great 
painters  (instead  of  being  a  bar  to)  accounts  for  their  multiplicity. 
Power  is  pleasure  ;  and  pleasure  sweetens  pain.  A  fine  poet  thus 
describes  the  effect  of  the  sight  of  nature  on  his  mind  : 

"The  sounding  cataract 
Haunted  me  like  a  passion;   the  tall  rock, 
The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood. 
Their  colours  and  their  forms  were  then  to  me 
An  appetite,  a  feeling,  and  a  love, 
That  had  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm 
By  thought  supplied,  or  any  interest 
Unborrowed  from  the  eye." 

So  the  forms  of  nature,  or  the  human  form  divine,  stood  before 
the  great  artists  of  old,  nor  required  any  other  stimulus  to  lead 
the  eye  to  survey,  or  the  hand  to  embody  them,  than  the  pleasure 
derived  from  the  inspiration  of  the  subject,  and  "  propulsive  force  " 
of  the  mimic  creation.  The  grandeur  of  their  works  was  an  ar- 
gument with  them,  not  to  stop  short,  but  to  proceed.  They  could 
have  no  higher  excitement  or  satisfaction  than  in  the  exercise  of 
their  art  and  endless  generation  of  truth  and  beauty.  Success 
prompts  to  exertion ;  and  habit  facilitates  success.  It  is  idle  to 
suppose  we  can  exhaust  nature ;  and  the  more  we  employ  our  own 
faculties,  the  more  we  strengthen  them  and  enrich  our  stores  of 
observation  and  invention.  The  more  we  do,  the  more  we  can  do. 
Not  indeed  if  we  get  our  ideas  out  of  our  own  heads  —  that  stock 
is  soon  exhausted,  and  we  recur  to  tiresome,  vapid  imitations  of 
ourselves.  But  this  is  the  difference  between  real  and  mock  talent, 
between  genius  and  affectation.  Nature  is  not  limited,  nor  does  it 
become  effete,  like  our  conceit  and  vanity.  The  closer  we  ex- 


528  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

amine  it,  the  more  it  refines  upon  us ;  it  expands  as  we  enlarge 
and  shift  our  view ;  it  "  grows  with  our  growth,  and  strengthens 
with  our  strength."  The  subjects  are  endless  ;  and  our  capacity  is 
invigorated  as  it  is  called  out  by  occasion  and  necessity.  He  who 
does  nothing,  renders  himself  incapable  of  doing  anything  ;  but 
while  we  are  executing  any  work,  we  are  preparing  and  qualifying 
ourselves  to  undertake  another.  The  principles  are  the  same  in 
all  nature ;  and  we  understand  them  better  as  we  verify  them 
by  experience  and  practice.  It  is  not  as  if  there  was  a  given 
number  of  subjects  to  work  upon,  or  a  set  of  innate  or  pre- 
conceived ideas  in  our  minds,  'which  we  encroached  upon  with 
every  new  design ;  the  subjects,  as  I  said  before,  are  endless,  and 
we  acquire  ideas  by  imparting  them.  Our  expenditure  of  intellec- 
tual wealth  makes  us  rich  ;  we  can  only  be  liberal  as  we  have  previ- 
ously accumulated  the  means.  By  lying  idle,  as  by  standing  still, 
we  are  confined  to  the  same  trite,  narrow  round  of  topics  :  by  con- 
tinuing our  efforts,  as  by  moving  forwards  in  a  road,  we  extend 
our  views,  and  discover  continually  new  tracts  of  country.  Genius, 
like  humanity,  rusts  for  want  of  use. 

Habit  also  gives  promptness ;  and  the  soul  of  dispatch  is  decis- 
ion. One  man  may  write  a  book  or  paint  a  picture,  while  another 
is  deliberating  about  the  plan  or  the  title-page.  The  great  painters 
were  able  to  do  so  much,  because  they  knew  exactly  what  they 
meant  to  do,  and  how  to  set  about  it.  They  were  thorough-bred 
workmen,  and  were  not  learning  their  art  while  they  were  exer- 
cising it.  We  can  do  a  great  deal  in  a  short  time  if  we  only  know 
how.  Thus  an  author  may  become  very  voluminous,  who  only 
employs  an  hour  or  two  in  a  day  in  study.  If  he  has  once  ob- 
tained, by  habit  and  reflection,  a  use  of  his  pen  with  plenty  of 
materials  to  work  upon,  the  pages  vanish  before  him.  The  time 
lost  is  in  beginning,  or  in  stopping  after  we  have  begun.  If  we 
only  go  forwards  with  spirit  and  confidence,  we  shall  soon  arrive  at 
the  end  of  our  journey.  A  practised  writer  ought  never  to  hesi- 
tate for  a  sentence  from  the  moment  he  sets  pen  to  paper,  or  think 
about  the  course  he  is  to  take.  He  must  trust  to  his  previous 


TABLE-  TALK.  529 

knowledge  of  the  subject  and  to  his  immediate  impulses,  and  he 
will  get  to  the  close  of  his  task  without  accidents  or  loss  of  time. 
I  can  easily  understand  how  the  old  divines  and  controversialists 
produced  their  folios :  I  could  write  folios  myself,  if  I  rose  early 
and  sat  up  late  at  this  kind  of  occupation.  But  I  confess  I  should 
be  soon  tired  of  it,  besides  wearying  the  reader. 

In  one  sense,  art  is  long  and  life  is  short.  In  another  sense, 
this  aphorism  is  not  true.  The  best  of  us  are  idle  half  our  time. 
It  is  wonderful  how  much  is  done  in  a  short  space,  provided  we 
set  about  it  properly,  and  give  our  minds  wholly  to  it.  Let  any 
one  devote  himself  to  any  art  or  science  ever  so  strenuously,  and 
he  will  still  have  leisure  to  make  considerable  progress  in  half  a 
dozen  other  acquirements.  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  a  mathemati- 
cian, a  musician,  a  poet,  and  an  anatomist,  besides  being  one  of 
the  greatest  painters  of  his  age.  The  Prince  of  Painters  was  a 
courtier,  a  lover,  and  fond  of  dress  and  company.  Michael  Angelo 
was  a  prodigy  of  versatility  of  talent  —  a  writer  of  Sonnets  (which 
Wordsworth  has  thought  worth  translating)  and  the  friend  of  Dante. 
Salvator  was  a  lutenist  and  a  satirist.  Titian  was  an  elegant  letter- 
writer,  and  a  finished  gentleman.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's  Dis- 
courses are  more  polished  and  classical  even  than  any  of  his 
pictures.  Let  a  man  do  all  he  can  in  any  one  branch  of  study,  he 
must  either  exhaust  himself  and  doze  over  it,  or  vary  his  pursuit, 
or  else  lie  idle.  All  our  real  labour  lies  in  a  nut-shell.  The  mind 
makes,  at  some  period  or  other,  one  Herculean  effort,  and  the  rest 
is  mechanical.  We  have  to  climb  a  steep  and  narrow  precipice  at 
first ;  but  after  that,  the  way  is  broad  and  easy,  where  we  may 
drive  several  accomplishments  abreast.  Men  should  have  one 
principal  pursuit,  which  may  be  both  agreeably  and  advantageously 
diversified  with  other  lighter  ones,  as  the  subordinate  parts  of  a 
picture  may  be  managed  so  as  to  give  effect  to  the  centre  group. 
It  has  been  observed  by  a  sensible  man,  that  the  having  a  regular 
occupation  or  professional  duties  to  attend  to  is  no  excuse  for  put- 
ting forth  an  inelegant  or  inaccurate  work ;  for  a  habit  of  industry 
braces  and  strengthens  the  mind,  and  enables  it  to  wield  its  ener- 


530  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

gies  with  additional  ease  and  steadier  purpose.  Were  I  allowed  to 
instance  in  myself,  if  what  I  write  at  present  is  worth  nothing,  at 
least  it  costs  me  nothing.  But  it  cost  me  a  great  deal  twenty  years 
ago.  I  have  added  little  to  my  stock  since  then,  and  taken  little 
from  it.  I  "  unfold  the  book  and  volume  of  the  brain,"  and  tran- 
scribe the  characters  I  see  there  as  mechanically  as  any  one  might 
copy  the  letters  in  a  sampler.  I  do  not  say  they  came  there 
mechanically  —  I  transfer  them  to  the  paper  mechanically.  After 
eight  or  ten  years'  hard  study,  an  author  (at  least)  may  go  to 
sleep. 

I  do  not  conceive  rapidity  of  execution  necessarily  implies 
slovenliness  or  crudeness.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  it  is  often 
productive  both  of  sharpness  and  freedom.  The  eagerness  of 
composition  strikes  out  sparkles  of  fancy,  and  runs  the  thoughts 
more  naturally  and  closely  into  one  another.  There  may  be  less 
formal  method,  but  there  is  more  life  and  spirit  and  truth.  In 
the  play  and  agitation  of  the  mind,  it  runs  over,  and  we  dally 
with  the  subject,  as  the  glass-blower  rapidly  shapes  the  vitreous 
fluid.  A  number  of  new  thoughts  rise  up  spontaneously,  and  they 
come  in  the  proper  places,  because  they  arise  from  the  occasion. 
They  are  also  sure  to  partake  of  the  warmth  and  vividness  of  that 
ebullition  of  mind  from  which  they  spring.  Spiritus  precipitandus 
est?  In  these  sort  of  voluntaries  in  composition,  the  thoughts  are 
worked  up  to  a  sort  of  projection  :  the  grasp  of  the  subject,  the 
presence  of  mind,  the  flow  of  expression,  must  be  something  akin 
to  extempore  speaking ;  or  perhaps  such  bold  but  finished  draughts 
may  be  compared  to  fresco  paintings,  which  imply  a  life  of  study 
and  great  previous  preparation,  but  of  which  the  execution  is 
momentary  and  irrevocable.  I  will  add  a  single  remark  on  a 
point  that  has  been  much  disputed.  Mr.  Cobbett  lays  it  down 
that  the  first  word  that  occurs  is  always  the  best.  I  would  venture 
to  differ  from  so  great  an  authority.  Mr.  Cobbett  himself  indeed 
writes  as  easily  and  as  well  as  he  talks ;  but  he  perhaps  is  hardly 
a  rule  for  others  without  his  practice  and  without  his  ability.  In 

8  The  spirit  must  be  hurried  forth. 


TABLE-TALK.  531 

the  hurry  of  composition  three  or  four  words  may  present  them- 
selves, one  on  the  back  of  the  other,  and  the  last  may  be  the  best 
and  right  one.  I  grant  thus  much,  that  it  is  in  vain  to  seek  for 
the  word  we  want,  or  endeavour  to  get  at  it  second-hand,  or  as  a 
paraphrase  on  some  other  word  —  it  must  come  of  itself,  or  arise 
out  of  an  immediate  impression  or  lively  intuition  of  the  subject ; 
that  is,  the  proper  word  must  be  suggested  immediately  by  the 
thought,  but  it  need  not  be  presented  as  soon  as  called  for.  It  is 
the  same  in  trying  to  recollect  the  names  of  places,  persons,  &c., 
where  we  cannot  force  our  memory  j  they  must  come  of  themselves 
by  natural  association,  as  it  were  ;  but  they  may  occur  to  us  when 
we  least  think  of  it,  owing  to  some  casual  circumstance  or  link  of 
connection,  and  long  after  we  have  given  up  the  search.  Proper 
expressions  rise  to  the  surface  from  the  heat  and  fermentation  of 
the  mind,  like  bubbles  on  an  agitated  stream.  It  is  this  which 
produces  a  clear  and  sparkling  style. 

In  painting,  great  execution  supplies  the  place  of  high  finishing. 
A  few  vigorous  touches,  properly  and  rapidly  disposed,  will  often 
give  more  of  the  appearance  and  texture  (even)  of  natural  objects 
than  the  most  heavy  and  laborious  details.  But  this  masterly  style 
of  execution  is  very  different  from  coarse  daubing.  I  do  not 
think,  however,  that  the  pains  or  polish  an  artist  bestows  upon  his 
works  necessarily  interferes  with  their  number.  He  only  grows 
more  enamoured  of  his  task,  proportionably  patient,  indefatigable, 
and  devotes  more  of  the  day  to  study.  The  time  we  lose  is  not 
in  overdoing  what  we  are  about,  but  in  doing  nothing.  Rubens 
had  great  facility  of  execution,  and  seldom  went  into  the  details. 
Yet  Raphael,  whose  oil-pictures  were  exact  and  laboured,  achieved, 
according  to  the  length  of  time  he  lived,  very  nearly  as  much  as 
he.  In  filling  up  the  parts  of  his  pictures,  and  giving  them  the 
last  perfection  they  were  capable  of,  he  filled  up  his  leisure  hours, 
which  otherwise  would  have  lain  idle  on  his  hands.  I  have  some- 
times accounted  for  the  slow  progress  of  certain  artists  from  the 
unfinished  state  in  which  they  have  left  their  works  at  last.  These 
were  evidently  done  by  fits  and  throes — there  was  no  appearance 


532  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

of  continuous  labour  —  one  figure  had  been  thrown  in  at  a  venture, 
and  then  another ;  and  in  the  intervals  between  these  convulsive 
and  random  efforts,  more  time  had  been  wasted  than  could  have 
been  spent  in  working  up  each  individual  figure  on  the  sure  prin- 
ciples of  art,  and  by  a  careful  inspection  of  nature  to  the  utmost 
point  of  practicable  perfection. 

Some  persons  are  afraid  of  their  own  works ;  and  having  made 
one  or  two  successful  efforts,  attempt  nothing  ever  after.  They 
stand  still  midway  in  the  road  to  fame,  from  being  startled  at  the 
shadow  of  their  own  reputation.  This  is  a  needless  alarm.  If 
what  they  have  already  done  possesses  real  power,  this  will  in- 
crease with  exercise  ;  if  it  has  not  this  power,  it  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  ensure  them  lasting  fame.  Such  delicate  pretenders 
tremble  on  the  brink  of  ideal  perfection,  like  dew-drops  on  the 
edge  of  flowers ;  and  are  fascinated,  like  so  many  Narcissuses, 
with  the  image  of  themselves,  reflected  from  the  public  admira- 
tion. It  is  seldom  indeed,  that  this  cautious  repose  will  answer 
its  end.  While  seeking  to  sustain  our  reputation  at  the  height,  we 
are  forgotten.  Shakespear  gave  different  advice,  and  himself 
acted  upon  it. 

"...  Perseverance,  dear  my  lord, 

Keeps  honour  bright.     To  have  done,  is  to  hang 

Quite  out  of  fashion,  like  a  rusty  mail, 

In  monumental  mockery.     Take  the  instant  way, 

For  honour  travels  in  a  strait  so  narrow, 

Where  one  but  goes  abreast.     Keep  then  the  path: 

For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons, 

That  one  by  one  pursue.     If  you  give  way, 

Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forth-right, 

Like  to  an  enter'd  tide,  they  all  rush  by, 

And  leave  you  hindmost  :  — 

Or  like  a  gallant  horse,  fall'n  in  first  rank, 

Lie  there  for  pavement  to  the  abject  rear, 

O'er-run  and  trampled.     Then  what  they  do  in  present, 

Though  less  than  yours  in  past,  must  o'ertop  yours : 

For  time  is  like  a  fashionable  host, 

That  slightly  shakes  his  parting  guest  by  the  hand, 


TABLE-TALK.  533 

And  with  his  arms  outstretch'd  as  he  would  fly, 

Grasps  in  the  comer.     Welcome  ever  smiles, 

And  farewell  goes  out  sighing.     O  let  not  virtue  seek 

Remuneration  for  the  thing  it  was;   for  beauty,  wit, 

High  birth,  vigour  of  bone,  desert  in  service, 

Love,  friendship,  charity,  are  subjects  all 

To  envious  and  calumniating  Time. 

One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin, 

That  all  with  one  consent  praise  new-born  gauds, 

Though  they  are  made  and  moulded  of  things  past; 

And  give  to  dust  that  is  a  little  gilt 

More  laud  than  gilt  o'er  dusted. 

The  present  eye  praises  the  present  object." 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  III.  3,   150-180. 

I  cannot  very  well  conceive  how  it  is  that  some  writers  (even  of 
taste  and  genius)  spend  whole  years  in  mere  corrections  for  the 
press,  as  it  were  —  in  polishing  a  line  or  adjusting  a  comma. 
They  take  long  to  consider,  exactly  as  there  is  nothing  worth  the 
trouble  of  a  moment's  thought ;  and  the  more  they  deliberate,  the 
farther  they  are  from  deciding :  for  their  fastidiousness  increases 
with  the  indulgence  of  it,  nor  is  there  any  real  ground  for  prefer- 
ence. They  are  in  the  situation  of  Ned  Softly  in  the  TATLER,  who 
was  a  whole  morning  debating  whether  a  line  of  poetical  epistle 
should  run  — 

"  You  sing  your  song  with  so  much  art;" 
or 

"  Your  song  you  sing  with  so  much  art." 

These  are  points  that  it  is  impossible  ever  to  come  to  a  determi- 
nation about ;  and  it  is  only  a  proof  of  a  little  mind  ever  to  have 
entertained  the  question  at  all. 

There  is  a  class  of  persons  whose  minds  seem  to  move  in  an 
element  of  littleness ;  or  rather,  that  are  entangled  in  trifling 
difficulties,  and  incapable  of  extricating  themselves  from  them. 
There  was  a  remarkable  instance  of  this  improgressive,  ineffectual, 
restless  activity  of  temper  in  a  late  celebrated  and  very  ingenious 
landscape-painter.  "  Never  ending,  still  beginning,"  his  mind 


534  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

seemed  entirely  made  up  of  points  and  fractions,  nor  could  he  by 
any  means  arrive  at  a  conclusion  or  a  valuable  whole.  He  made 
it  his  boast  that  he  never  sat  with  his  hands  before  him,  and  yet  he 
never  did  anything.  His  power  and  his  time  were  frittered  away 
in  an  unfortunate,  uneasy,  fidgetty  attention  to  little  things.  The 
first  picture  he  ever  painted  (when  a  mere  boy)  was  a  copy  of 
his  father's  house ;  and  he  began  it  by  counting  the  number  of 
bricks  in  the  front  upwards  and  lengthways,  and  then  made  a  scale 
of  them  on  his  canvas.  This  literal  style  and  mode  of  study  stuck 
to  him  to  the  last.  He  was  placed  under  Wilson,  whose  example 
(if  anything  could)  might  have  cured  him  of  this  pettiness  of  con- 
ception ;  but  nature  prevailed,  as  it  almost  always  does.  To  take 
pains  to  no  purpose,  seemed  to  be  his  motto,  and  the  delight  of 
his  life.  He  left  (when  he  died,  not  long  ago)  heaps  of  canvasses 
with  elaborately  finished  pencil  outlines  on  them,  and  with  perhaps 
a  little  dead  colouring  added  here  and  there.  In  this  state  they 
were  thrown  aside,  as  if  he  grew  tired  of  his  occupation  the  in- 
stant it  gave  a  promise  of  turning  to  account,  and  his  whole  object 
in  the  pursuit  of  art  was  to  erect  scaffoldings.  The  same  intense 
interest  in  the  most  frivolous  things  extended  to  the  common  con- 
cerns of  life,  to  the  arranging  of  his  letters,  the  labelling  of  his 
books,  and  the  inventory  of  his  wardrobe.  Yet  he  was  a  man  of 
sense,  who  saw  the  folly  and  the  waste  of  time  in  all  this,  and 
could  warn  others  against  it.  The  perceiving  our  own  weaknesses 
enables  us  to  give  others  excellent  advice,  but  it  does  not  teach  us 
to  reform  them  ourselves.  "  Physician,  heal  thyself,"  is  the  hard- 
est lesson  to  follow.  Nobody  knew  better  than  our  artist  that 
repose  is  necessary  to  great  efforts,  and  that  he  who  is  never  idle, 
labours  in  vain  ! 

Another  error  is  to  spend  one's  life  in  procrastination  and  prep- 
arations for  the  future.  Persons  of  this  turn  of  mind  stop  at  the 
threshold  of  art,  and  accumulate  the  means  of  improvement, 
till  they  obstruct  their  progress  to  the  end.  They  are  always 
putting  off  the  evil  day  and  excuse  themselves  for  doing  nothing 
by  commencing  some  new  and  indispensable  course  of  study. 


TABLE-TALK.  535 

Their  projects  are  magnificent,  but  remote,  and  require  years  to 
complete  or  to  put  them  in  execution.  Fame  is  seen  in  the  hori- 
zon, and  flies  before  them.  Like  the  recreant  boastful  knight  in 
Spenser,  they  turn  their  backs  on  their  competitors  to  make  a 
great  career,  but  never  return  to  the  charge.  They  make  them- 
selves masters  of  anatomy,  of  drawing,  of  perspective ;  they 
collect  prints,  casts,  medallions,  make  studies  of  heads,  of  hands, 
of  the  bones,  the  muscles ;  copy  pictures ;  visit  Italy,  Greece, 
and  return  as  they  went.  They  fulfil  the  proverb,  "  When  you 
are  at  Rome,  you  must  do  as  those  at  Rome  do."  This  circu- 
itous, erratic  pursuit  of  art  can  come  to  no  good.  It  is  only  an 
apology  for  idleness  and  vanity.  Foreign  travel  especially  makes 
men  pedants,  not  artists.  What  we  seek,  we  must  find  at  home, 
or  nowhere.  The  way  to  do  great  things  is  to  set  about  some- 
thing, and  he  who  cannot  find  resources  in  himself  or  in  his  own 
painting-room,  will  perform  the  Grand  Tour,  or  go  through  the 
circle  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  end  just  where  he  began  ! 

The  same  remarks  that  have  been  here  urged  with  respect  to 
an  application  to  the  study  of  art,  will  in  a  great  measure  (though 
not  in  every  particular,)  apply  to  an  attention  to  business :  I 
mean,  that  exertion  will  generally  follow  success  and  opportunity 
in  the  one,  as  it  does  confidence  and  talent  in  the  other.  Give  a 
man  a  motive  to  work,  and  he  will  work.  A  lawyer  who  is  regu- 
larly feed,  seldom  neglects  to  look  over  his  briefs :  the  more 
business,  the  more  industry.  The  stress  laid  upon  early  rising  is 
preposterous.  If  we  have  anything  to  do  when  we  get  up,  we 
shall  not  lie  in  bed,  to  a  certainty.  Thomson  the  poet  was  found 
late  in  bed  by  Dr.  Burney,  and  asked  why  he  had  not  risen  earlier. 
The  Scotchman  wisely  answered,  "I  had  no  motive,  young  man  ! " 
What,  indeed,  had  he  to  do  after  writing  the  SEASONS,  but  to 
dream  out  the  rest  of  his  existence,  or  employ  it  in  writing  the 
CASTLE  OF  INDOLENCE  ! 4 

4  School-boys  attend  to  their  tasks  as  soon  as  they  acquire  a  relish  for 
study,  and  they  apply  to  that  for  which  they  find  they  have  a  capacity.  — 
From  HAZLITT'S  Note. 


XXVII. 

CHARLES    LAMB. 

(1775-1834.) 

THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELI  A. 

['Written  in  1821-1826.] 

i.  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.* 

MY  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory  and  unmethodical. 
Odd,  out  of  the  way,  old  English  plays  and  treatises,  have  sup- 
plied me  with  most  of  my  notions  and  ways  of  feeling.  In 
everything  that  relates  to  science,  I  am  a  whole  Encyclopaedia 
behind  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  should  have  scarcely  cut  a  figure 
among  the  franklins,  or  country  gentlemen,  in  King  John's  days. 
I  know  less  geography  than  a  schoolboy  of  six  weeks'  standing. 
To  me  a  map  of  old  Ortelius  is  as  authentic  as  Arrowsmith.  I  do 
not  know  whereabout  Africa  merges  info  Asia ;  whether  Ethiopia 
lie  in  one  or  other  of  those  great  divisions ;  nor  can  form  the 
remotest  conjecture  of  the  position  of  New  South  Wales,  or  Van 
Diemen's  Land.  Yet  do  I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very 
dear  friend  in  the  first-named  of  these  two  Terrae  Incognitas.  I 
have  no  astronomy.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  the  Bear,  or 
Charles's  Wain ;  the  place  of  any  star ;  or  the  name  of  any  of 
them  at  sight.  I  guess  at  Venus  only  by  her  brightness  —  and  if 
the  sun  on  some  portentous  morn  were  to  make  his  first  appear- 
ance in  the  West,  I  verily  believe  that,  while  all  the  world  were 
gasping  in  apprehension  about  me,  I  alone  should  stand  unterrified, 
from  sheer  incuriosity  and  want  of  observation.  Of  history  and 

1  From  The  London  Magazine,  May,  1821. 
536 


THE  ESS  A  YS   OF  ELI  A.  537 

chronology  I  possess  some  vague  points,  such  as  one  cannot  help 
picking  up  in  the  course  of  miscellaneous  study;  but  I  never 
deliberately  sat  down  to  a  chronicle,  even  of  my  own  country. 
I  have  most  dim  apprehensions  of  the  four  great  monarchies; 
and  sometimes  the  Assyrian,  sometimes  the  Persian,  floats  as  first 
in  my  fancy.  I  make  the  widest  conjectures  concerning  Egypt, 
and  her  shepherd  kings.  My  friend  M.,  with  great  painstaking, 
got  me  to  think  I  understood  the  first  proposition  in  Euclid,  but 
gave  me  over  in  despair  at  the  second.  I  am  entirely  unac- 
quainted with  the  modern  languages ;  and,  like  a  better  man  than 
myself,  have  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek."  I  am  a  stranger  to 
the  shapes  and  texture  of  the  commonest  trees,  herbs,  flowers  — 
not  from  the  circumstance  of  my  being  town-born  —  for  I  should 
have  brought  the  same  inobservant  spirit  into  the  world  with  me, 
had  I  first  seen  it  "on  Devon's  leafy  shores,"  —  and  am  no  less 
at  a  loss  among  purely  town-objects,  tools,  engines,  mechanic 
processes.  —  Not  that  I  affect  ignorance  —  but  my  head  has  not 
many  mansions,  nor  spacious ;  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  fill  it 
with  such  cabinet  curiosities  as  it  can  hold  without  aching.  I 
sometimes  wonder,  how  I  have  passed  my  probation  with  so  little 
discredit  in  the  world,  as  I  have  done,  upon  so  meagre  a  stock. 
But  the  fact  is,  a  man  may  do  very  well  with  a  very  little  knowl- 
edge, and  scarce  be  found  out,  in  mixed  company ;  everybody  is 
so  much  more  ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to  call  for  a  dis- 
play of  your  acquisitions.  But  in  a  tete-a-tete  there  is  no  shuffling. 
The  truth  will  out.  There  is  nothing  which  I  dread  so  much, 
as  the  being  left  alone  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  a  sensible, 
well-informed  man,  that  does  not  know  me.  I  lately  got  into  a 
dilemma  of  this  sort. — 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishopsgate  and  Shacklewell, 
the  coach  stopped  to  take  up  a  staid-looking  gentleman,  about  the 
wrong  side  of  thirty,  who  was  giving  his  parting  directions  (while 
the  steps  were  adjusting),  in  a  tone  of  mild  authority,  to  a  tall 
youth,  who  seemed  to  be  neither  his  clerk,  his  son,  nor  his  servant, 
but  something  partaking  of  all  three.  The  youth  was  dismissed, 


538  CHARLES  LAMB. 

and  we  drove  on.  As  we  were  the  sole  passengers,  he  naturally 
enough  addressed  his  conversation  to  me  ;  and  we  discussed  the 
merits  of  the  fare,  the  civility  and  punctuality  of  the  driver ;  the 
circumstance  of  an  opposition  coach  having  been  lately  set  up, 
with  the  probabilities  of  its  success  —  to  all  which  I  was  enabled 
to  return  pretty  satisfactory  answers,  having  been  drilled  into  this 
kind  of  etiquette  by  some  years'  daily  practice  of  riding  to  and 
fro  in  the  stage  aforesaid  —  when  he  suddenly  alarmed  me  by  a 
startling  question,  whether  I  had  seen  the  show  of  prize  cattle  that 
morning  in  Smithfield?  Now  as  I  had  not  seen  it,  and  do  not 
greatly  care  for  such  sort  of  exhibitions,  I  was  obliged  to  return  a 
cold  negative.  He  seemed  a  little  mortified,  as  well  as  astonished, 
at  my  declaration,  as  (it  appeared)  he  was  just  come  fresh  from 
the  sight,  and  doubtless  had  hoped  to  compare  notes  on  the  sub- 
ject. However  he  assured  me  that  I  had  lost  a  fine  treat,  as  it 
far  exceeded  the  show  of  last  year.  We  were  now  approaching 
Norton  Folgate,  when  the  sight  of  some  shop-goods  ticketed 
freshened  him  up  into  a  dissertation  upon  the  cheapness  of  cottons 
this  spring.  I  was  now  a  little  in  heart,  as  the  nature  of  my 
morning  avocations  had  brought  me  into  some  sort  of  familiarity 
with  the  raw  material  j  and  I  was  surprised  to  find  how  eloquent 
I  was  becoming  on  the  state  of  the  India  market  — when,  presently, 
he  dashed  my  incipient  vanity  to  the  earth  at  once,  by  inquiring 
whether  I  had  ever  made  any  calculation  as  to  the  value  of  the 
rental  of  all  the  retail  shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked  of  me, 
what  song  the  Sirens  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  assumed  when 
he  hid  himself  among  women,  I  might,  with  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
have  hazarded  a  "  wide  solution."2  My  companion  saw  my  em- 
barrassment, and,  the  almshouses  beyond  Shoreditch  just  coming 
in  view,  with  great  good-nature  and  dexterity  shifted  his  conversa- 
tion to  the  subject  of  public  charities ;  which  led  to  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  provision  for  the  poor  in  past  and  present  times, 
with  observations  on  the  old  monastic  institutions,  and  charitable 
orders ;  —  but,  finding  me  rather  dimly  impressed  with  some 
2  Urn  Burial.  See  ante,  p.  170. 


THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA.  539 

glimmering  notions  from  old  poetic  associations,  than  strongly 
fortified  with  any  speculations  reducible  to  calculation  on  the  sub- 
ject, he  gave  the  matter  up ;  and,  the  country  beginning  to  open 
more  and  more  upon  us,  as  we  approached  the  turnpike  at  Kings- 
land  (the  destined  termination  of  his  journey),  he  put  a  home 
thrust  upon  me,  in  the  most  unfortunate  position  he  could  have 
chosen,  by  advancing  some  queries  relative  to  the  North  Pole 
Expedition.  While  I  was  muttering  out  something  about  the 
Panorama  of  those  strange  regions  (which  I  had  actually  seen), 
by  way  of  parrying  the  question,  the  coach  stopping  relieved  me 
from  any  further  apprehensions.  My  companion  getting  out,  left 
me  in  the  comfortable  possession  of  my  ignorance ;  and  I  heard 
him,  as  he  went  off,  putting  questions  to  an  outside  passenger, 
who  had  alighted  with  him,  regarding  an  epidemic  disorder  that 
had  been  rife  about  Dalston,  and  which,  my  friend  assured  him, 
had  gone  through  five  or  six  schools  in  that  neighbourhood.  The 
truth  now  flashed  upon  me,  that  my  companion  was  a  school- 
master ;  and  that  the  youth,  whom  he  had  parted  from  at  our  first 
acquaintance,  must  have  been  one  of  the  bigger  boys,  or  the 
usher.  —  He  was  evidently  a  kind-hearted  man,  who  did  not  seem 
so  much  desirous  of  provoking  discussion  by  the  questions  which 
he  put,  as  of  obtaining  information  at  any  rate.  It  did  not  appear 
that  he  took  any  interest,  either,  in  such  kind  of  inquiries,  for 
their  own  sake ;  but  that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to  seek  for 
knowledge.  A  greenish-coloured  coat,  which  he  had  on,  forbade 
me  to  surmise  that  he  was  a  clergyman.  The  adventure  gave  birth 
to  some  reflections  on  the  difference  between  persons  of  his  pro- 
fession in  past  and  present  times. 

Rest  to  the  souls  of  those  fine  old  Pedagogues ;  the  breed,  long 
since  extinct,  of  the  Lilys,  and  the  Linacres  :  who,  believing  that 
all  learning  was  contained  in  the  languages  which  they  taught,  and 
despising  every  other  acquirement  as  superficial  and  useless,  came 
to  their  task  as  to  a  sport !  Passing  from  infancy  to  age,  they 
dreamed  away  all  their  days  as  in  a  grammar-school.  Revolv- 
ing in  a  perpetual  cycle  of  declensions,  conjugations,  syntaxes, 


540  CHARLES  LAMB. 

and  prosodies ;  renewing  constantly  the  occupations  which  had 
charmed  their  studious  childhood  ;  rehearsing  continually  the  part 
of  the  past;  life  must  have  slipped  from  them  at  last  like  one  day. 
They  were  always  in  their  first  garden,  reaping  harvests  of  their 
golden  time,  among  their  Flori-  and  their  Spici-legia?  in  Arcadia 
still,  but  kings ;  the  ferule  of  their  sway  not  much  harsher,  but  of 
like  dignity  with  that  mild  sceptre  attributed  to  King  Basileus ; 
the  Greek  and  Latin,  their  stately  Pamela  and  their  Philoclea ; 
with  the  occasional  duncery  of  some  untoward  Tyro,  serving  for  a 
refreshing  interlude  of  a  Mopsa,  or  a  clown  Damoetas  !  * 

With  what  a  savour  doth  the  Preface  to  Colet's,  or  (as  it  is 
sometimes  called)  Paul's  Accidence,  set  forth  !  "  To  exhort  every 
man  to  the  learning  of  grammar,  that  intendeth  to  attain  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  tongues,  wherein  is  contained  a  great  treasury 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  it  would  seem  but  vain  and  lost  labour  ; 
for  so  much  as  it  is  known,  that  nothing  can  surely  be  ended, 
whose  beginning  is  either  feeble  or  faulty ;  and  no  building  be 
perfect,  whereas  the  foundation  and  ground-work  is  ready  to  fall, 
and  unable  to  uphold  the  burden  of  the  frame."  How  well  doth 
this  stately  preamble  (comparable  to  those  which  Milton  com- 
mendeth  as  "  having  been  the  usage  to  prefix  to  some  solemn  law, 
then  first  promulgated  by  Solon,  or  Lycurgus ")  correspond  with 
and  illustrate  that  pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed  in  a  suc- 
ceeding clause,  which  would  fence  about  grammar-rules  with  the 
severity  of  faith  articles  !  —  "as  for  the  diversity  of  grammars,  it 
is  well  profitably  taken  away  by  the  kings  majesties  wisdom,  who, 
foreseeing  the  inconvenience,  and  favourably  providing  the  reme- 
die,  caused  one  kind  of  grammar  by  sundry  learned  men  to  be 
diligently  drawn,  and  so  to  be  set  out,  only  everywhere  to  be  taught 
for  the  use  of  learners,  and  for  the  hurt  in  changing  of  school- 
masters." What  a  gusto  in  that  which  follows:  "wherein  it  is 
profitable  that  he  [the  pupil]  can  orderly  decline  his  noun,  and 
his  verb."  His  noun  ! 

8  Collections  of  flowers  and  fruits.  *  See  Sidney's  Arcadia. 


THE  ESSA  YS   OF  ELIA.  541 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast ;  and  the  least  concern  of  a 
teacher  in  the  present  day  is  to  inculcate  grammar- rules. 

The  modern  schoolmaster  is  expected  to  know  a  little  of  every- 
thing, because  his  pupil  is  required  not  to  be  entirely  ignorant  of 
anything.  He  must  be  superficially,  if  I  may  so  say,  omniscient. 
He  is  to  know  something  of  pneumatics ;  of  chemistry ;  of  what- 
ever is  curious,  or  proper  to  excite  the  attention  of  the  youthful 
mind;  an  insight  into  mechanics  is  desirable,  with  a  touch  of 
statistics ;  the  quality  of  soils,  &c. ;  botany ;  the  constitution  of 
his  country,  cum  multis  aliis.  *  You  may  get  a  notion  of  some 
part  of  his  expected  duties  by  consulting  the  famous  Tractate  on 
Education  addressed  to  Mr.  Hartlib. 5 

All  these  things  —  these,  or  the  desire  of  them  —  he  is  expected 
to  instil,  not  by  set  lessons  from  professors,  which  he  may  charge 
in  the  bill,  but  at  school-intervals,  as  he  walks  the  streets,  or 
saunters  through  green  fields  (those  natural  instructors)  with  his 
pupils.  The  least  part  of  what  is  expected  from  him  is  to  be  done 
in  school-hours.  He  must  insinuate  knowledge  at  the  mollia  tem- 
porafandi?  He  must  seize  every  occasion  —  the  season  of  the 
year  —  the  time  of  the  day  —  a  passing  cloud  —  a  rainbow  —  a 
waggon  of  hay  —  a  regiment  of  soldiers  going  by  —  to  inculcate 
something  useful.  He  can  receive  no  pleasure  from  a  casual 
glimpse  of  nature,  but  must  catch  at  it  as  an  object  of  instruction. 
He  must  interpret  beauty  into  the  picturesque.  He  cannot  relish 
a  beggar-man,  or  a  gypsy,  for  thinking  of  the  suitable  improve- 
ment. Nothing  comes  to  him,  not  spoiled  by  the  unsophisticating 
medium  of  moral  uses.  The  Universe  —  that  Great  Book,  as  it 
has  been  called  —  is  to  him  indeed,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
a  book,  out  of  which  he  is  doomed  to  read  tedious  homilies  to 
distasting  schoolboys.  Vacations  themselves  are  none  to  him,  he 
is  only  rather  worse  off  than  before ;  for  commonly  he  has  some 
intrusive  upper- boy  fastened  upon  him  at  such  times  :  some  cadet 
of  a  great  family ;  some  neglected  lump  of  nobility,  or  gentry ; 

*  with  many  other  things. 

6  Milton's  Letter  on  Education.  6  suitable  times  of  speaking. 


542  CHARLES  LAMB. 

that  he  must  drag  after  him  to  the  play,  to  the  panorama,  to  Mr. 
Bartley's  Orrery,  to  the  Panopticon,  or  into  the  country,  to  a 
friend's  house,  or  his  favourite  watering-place.  Wherever  he  goes, 
this  uneasy  shadow  attends  him.  A  boy  is  at  his  board,  and  in 
his  path,  and  in  all  his  movements.  He  is  boy-rid,  sick  of  per- 
petual boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way,  among  their  mates ; 
but  they  are  unwholesome  companions  for  grown  people.  The 
restraint  is  felt  no  less  on  the  one  side,  than  on  the  other.  —  Even 
a  child,  that  "  plaything  for  an  hour,"  7  tires  always.  The  noises 
of  children,  playing  their  own  fancies  —  as  I  now  hearken  to  them 
by  fits,  sporting  on  the  green  before  my  window,  while  I  am  en- 
gaged in  these  grave  speculations  at  my  neat  suburban  retreat  at 
Shacklewell  —  by  distance  made  more  sweet  —  inexpressibly  take 
from  the  labour  of  my  task.  It  is  like  writing  to  music.  They 
seem  to  modulate  my  periods.  They  ought  at  least  to  do  so  — 
for  in  the  voice  of  that  tender  age  there  is  a  kind  of  poetry,  far 
unlike  the  harsh  prose-accents  of  man's  conversation.  —  I  should 
but  spoil  their  sport,  and  diminish  my  own  sympathy  for  them,  by 
mingling  in  their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days  with  a  person  of  very 
superior  capacity  to  my  own  —  not,  if  I  know  myself  at  all,  from 
any  considerations  of  jealousy,  or  self-comparison,  for  the  occa- 
sional communion  with  such  minds  has  constituted  the  fortune  and 
felicity  of  my  life  —  but  the  habit  of  too  constant  intercourse  with 
spirits  above  you,  instead  of  raising  you,  keeps  you  down.  Too 
frequent  doses  of  original  thinking  from  others,  restrain  what  lesser 
portion  of  that  faculty  you  may  possess  of  your  own.  You  get 
entangled  in  another  man's  mind,  even  as  you  lose  yourself  in 
another  man's  grounds.  You  are  walking  with  a  tall  varlet,  whose 
strides  out-pace  yours  to  lassitude.  The  constant  operation  of 
such  potent  agency  would  reduce  me,  I  am  convinced,  to  imbecil- 
ity. You  may  derive  thoughts  from  others  ;  your  way  of  thinking, 

7  "  One  of  Lamb's  quotations  from  himself.  The  phrase  occurs  in  a  charm- 
ing poem  of  three  stanzas,  in  the  Poetry  for  Children."  —  AlNGER. 


THE  ESSA  YS   OF  ELI  A.  543 

the  mould  in  which  your  thoughts  are  cast,  must  be  your  own. 
Intellect  may  be  imparted,  but  not  each  man's  intellectual  frame. 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus  dragged  upwards,  as 
little  (or  rather  still  less)  is  it  desirable  to  be  stunted  downwards 
by  your  associates.  The  trumpet  does  not  more  stun  you  by  its 
loudness,  than  a  whisper  teases  you  by  its  provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the  presence  of  a  school- 
master ?  —  because  we  are  conscious  that  he  is  not  quite  at  his 
ease  in  ours.  He  is  awkward,  and  out  of  place,  in  the  society  of 
his  equals.  He  comes  like  Gulliver  from  among  his  little  people, 
and  he  cannot  fit  the  stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours.  He 
cannot  meet  you  on  the  square.  He  wants  a  point  given  him,  like 
an  indifferent  whist-player.  He  is  so  used  to  teaching,  that  he 
wants  to  be  teaching  you.  One  of  these  professors,  upon  my 
complaining  that  these  little  sketches  of  mine  were  anything  but 
methodical,  and  that  I  was  unable  to  make  them  otherwise,  kindly 
offered  to  instruct  me  in  the  method  by  which  young  gentlemen 
in  his  seminary  were  taught  to  compose  English  themes.  — The 
jests  of  a  schoolmaster  are  coarse,  or  thin.  They  do  not  tell  out 
of  school.  He  is  under  the  restraint  of  a  formal  and  didactive 
hypocrisy  in  company,  as  a  clergyman  is  under  a  moral  one.  He 
can  no  more  let  his  intellect  loose  in  society,  than  the  other  can 
his  inclinations.  —  He  is  forlorn  among  his  co-evals ;  his  juniors 
cannot  be  his  friends. 

"  I  take  blame  to  myself,"  said  a  sensible  man  of  this  profession, 
writing  to  a  friend  respecting  a  youth  who  had  quitted  his  school 
abruptly,  "  that  your  nephew  was  not  more  attached  to  me.  But 
persons  in  my  situation  are  more  to  be  pitied,  than  can  well  be 
imagined.  We  are  surrounded  by  young,  and,  consequently, 
ardently  affectionate  hearts,  but  we  can  never  hope  to  share  an 
atom  of  their  affections.  The  relation  of  master  and  scholar  for- 
bids this.  How  pleasing  this  must  be  to  you,  how  I  envy  your 
feelings,  my  friends  will  sometimes  say  to  me,  when  they  see  young 
men,  whom  I  have  educated,  return  after  some  years'  absence 
from  school,  their  eyes  shining  with  pleasure,  while  they  shake 


544  CHARLES  LAMB. 

hands  with  their  old  master,  bringing  a  present  of  game  to  me,  or 
a  toy  to  my  wife,  and  thanking  me  in  the  warmest  terms  for  my 
care  of  their  education.  A  holiday  is  begged  for  the  boys ;  the 
house  is  a  scene  of  happiness;  I,  only,  am  sad  at  heart.  —  This 
fine-spirited  and  warm-hearted  youth,  who  fancies  he  repays  his 
master  with  gratitude  for  the  care  of  his  boyish  years  —  this  young 
man  —  in  the  eight  long  years  I  watched  over  him  with  a  parent's 
anxiety,  never  could  repay  me  with  one  look  of  genuine  feeling. 
He  was  proud,  when  I  praised ;  he  was  submissive,  when  I  re- 
proved him ;  but  he  did  never  love  me  —  and  what  he  now  mis- 
takes for  gratitude  and  kindness  for  me,  is  but  a  pleasant  sensation, 
which  all  persons  feel  at  revisiting  the  scene  of  their  boyish  hopes 
and  fears;  and  the  seeing  on  equal  terms  the  man  they  were 
accustomed  to  look  up  to  with  reverence.  My  wife,  too,"  this 
interesting  correspondent  goes  on  to  say,  "  my  once  darling  Anna, 
is  the  wife  of  a  schoolmaster.  —  When  I  married  her  —  knowing 
that  the  wife  of  a  schoolmaster  ought  to  be  a  busy  notable  creature, 
and  fearing  that  my  gentle  Anna  would  ill  supply  the  loss  of  my 
dear  bustling  mother,  just  then  dead,  who  never  sat  still,  was  in 
every  part  of  the  house  in  a  moment,  and  whom  I  was  obliged 
sometimes  to  threaten  to  fasten  down  in  a  chair,  to  save  her  from 
fatiguing  herself  to  death  —  I  expressed  my  fears,  that  I  was 
bringing  her  into  a  way  of  life  unsuitable  to  her ;  and  she,  who 
loved  me  tenderly,  promised  for  my  sake  to  exert  herself  to  per- 
form the  duties  of  her  new  situation.  She  promised,  and  she  has 
kept  her  word.  What  wonders  will  not  a  woman's  love  perform  ? 
—  My  house  is  managed  with  a  propriety  and  decorum,  unknown 
in  other  schools  ;  my  boys  are  well-fed,  look  healthy,  and  have 
every  proper  accommodation ;  and  all  this  performed  with  a  care- 
ful economy,  that  never  descends  to  meanness.  But  I  have  lost 
my  gentle,  helpless  Anna  !  —  When  we  sit  down  to  enjoy  an  hour 
of  repose  after  the  fatigue  of  the  day,  I  am  compelled  to  listen  to 
what  have  been  her  useful  (and  they  are  really  useful)  employ- 
ments through  the  day,  and  what  she  proposes  for  her  to-morrow's 
task.  Her  heart  and  her  features  are  changed  by  the  duties  of  her 


THE  ESSA  YS   OF  ELI  A.  545 

situation.  To  the  boys,  she  never  appears  other  than  the  master's 
wife,  and  she  looks  up  to  me  as  the  boys'  master ;  to  whom  all 
show  of  love  and  affection  would  be  highly  improper,  and  unbe- 
coming the  dignity  of  her  situation  and  mine.  Yet  this  my 
gratitude  forbids  me  to  hint  to  her.  For  my  sake  she  submitted 
to  be  this  altered  creature,  and  can  I  reproach  her  for  it  ?  [These 
kind  of  complaints  are  not  often  drawn  from  me.  I  am  aware 
that  I  am  a  fortunate,  I  mean  a  prosperous  man."  My  feelings 
prevent  me  from  transcribing  any  further.]  —  For  the  communica- 
tion of  this  letter,  I  am  indebted  to  my  cousin  Bridget. 


2.   A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT  OF  THE   BEHAVIOUR   OF   MARRIED 

PEOPLE.8 

As  a  single  man,  I  have  spent  a  good  deal  of  my  time  in  not- 
ing down  the  infirmities  of  Married  People  to  console  myself  for 
those  superior  pleasures,  which  they  tell  me  I  have  lost  by  remain- 
ing as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and  their  wives  ever 
made  any  great  impression  upon  me,  or  had  much  tendency  to 
strengthen  me  in  those  anti-social  resolutions,  which  I  took  up 
long  ago  upon  more  substantial  considerations.  What  oftenest 
offends  me  at  the  houses  of  married  persons  where  I  visit,  is  an 
error  of  quite  a  different  description ;  —  it  is  that  they  are  too 
loving. 

Not  too  loving  neither :  that  does  not  explain  my  meaning. 
Besides,  why  should  that  offend  me  ?  The  very  act  of  separating 
themselves  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  to  have  the  fuller  enjoy- 
ment of  each  other's  society,  implies  that  they  prefer  one  another 
to  all  the  world. 

8  From  The  London  Magazine,  September,  1822. — This  paper,  eleven  years 
prior  to  its  reissue  as  one  of  the  Elian  essays  in  the  London,  appeared  (in 
1811)  in  No.  4  of  Leigh  Hunt's  Reflector.  Upon  the  occasion  of  its  repub- 
lication  in  the  Magazine  it  was  subscribed  "  your  humble  servant  Elia."  — 
MORLEY. 


546  CHARLES  LAMB. 

But  what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this  preference  so 
undisguisedly,  they  perk  it  up  in  the  faces  of  us  single  people  so 
shamelessly,  you  cannot  be  in  their  company  a  moment  without 
being  made  to  feel,  by  some  indirect  hint  or  open  avowal,  that  you 
are  not  the  object  of  this  preference.  Now  there  are  some  things 
which  give  no  offence,  while  implied  or  taken  for  granted  merely ; 
but  expressed,  there  is  much  offence  in  them.  If  a  man  were  to 
accost  the  first  homely-featured  or  plain-dressed  young  woman  of 
his  acquaintance,  and  tell  her  bluntly,  that  she  was  not  handsome 
or  rich  enough  for  him,  and  he  could  not  marry  her,  he  would 
deserve  to  be  kicked  for  his  ill  manners  ;  yet  no  less  is  implied  in 
the  fact,  that  having  access  and  opportunity  of  putting  the  question 
to  her,  he  has  never  yet  thought  fit  to  do  it.  The  young  woman 
understands  this  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  put  into  words  :  but  no 
reasonable  young  woman  would  think  of  making  this  the  ground 
of  a  quarrel.  Just  as  little  right  have  a  married  couple  to  tell  me 
by  speeches,  and  looks  that  are  scarce  less  plain  than  speeches, 
that  I  am  not  the  happy  man,  —  the  lady's  choice.  It  is  enough 
that  I  know  I  am  not ;  I  do  not  want  this  perpetual  reminding. 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches  may  be  made  suf- 
ficiently mortifying ;  but  these  admit  of  a  palliative.  The  knowl- 
edge which  is  brought  out  to  insult  me,  may  accidentally  improve 
me  ;  and  in  the  rich  man's  houses  and  pictures,  —  his  parks  and 
gardens,  I  have  a  temporary  usufruct  at  least.  But  the  display 
of  married  happiness  has  none  of  these  palliatives ;  it  is  through- 
out pure,  unrecompensed,  unqualified  insult. 

Marriage  by  its  best  title  is  a  monopoly,  and  not  of  the  least 
invidious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning  of  most  possessors  of  any  exclu- 
sive privilege  to  keep  their  advantage  as  much  out  of  sight  as 
possible,  that  their  less  favoured  neighbours,  seeing  little  of  the 
benefit,  may  the  less  be  disposed  to  question  the  right.  But  these 
married  monopolists  thrust  the  most  obnoxious  part  of  their  patent 
into  our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that  entire  complacency 
and  satisfaction  which  beam  in  the  countenances  of  a  new  married 


THE  ESS  A  YS    OF  ELI  A.  547 

couple,  —  in  that  of  the  lady  particularly  :  it  tells  you,  that  her  lot 
is  disposed  of  in  this  world ;  that  you  can  have  no  hopes  of  her. 
It  is  true,  I  have  none ;  nor  wishes  either,  perhaps :  but  this  is 
one  of  those  truths  which  ought,  as  I  said  before,  to  be  taken  for 
granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  which  those  people  give  themselves,  founded 
on  the  ignorance  of  us  unmarried  people,  would  be  more  offensive 
if  they  were  less  irrational.  We  will  allow  them  to  understand  the 
mysteries  belonging  to  their  own  craft  better  than  we  who  have  not 
had  the  happiness  to  be  made  free  of  the  company :  but  their 
arrogance  is  not  content  within  these  limits.  If  a  single  person 
presume  to  offer  his  opinion  in  their  presence,  though  upon  the 
most  indifferent  subject,  he  is  immediately  silenced  as  an  incompe- 
tent person.  Nay,  a  young  married  lady  of  my  acquaintance, 
who,  the  best  of  the  jest  was,  had  not  changed  her  condition  above 
a  fortnight  before,  in  a  question  on  which  I  had  the  misfortune  to 
differ  from  her,  respecting  the  properest  mode  of  breeding  oysters 
for  the  London  market,  had  the  assurance  to  ask,  with  a  sneer, 
how  such  an  old  Bachelor  as  I  could  pretend  to  know  anything 
about  such  matters. 

But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing  to  the  airs  which 
these  creatures  give  themselves  when  they  come,  as  they  generally 
do,  to  have  children.  When  I  consider  how  little  of  a  rarity  chil- 
dren are,  —  that  every  street  and  blind  alley  swarms  with  them,  — 
that  the  poorest  people  commonly  have  them  in  most  abundance, 
—  that  there  are  few  marriages  that  are  not  blest  with  at  least  one 
of  these  bargains,  —  how  often  they  turn  out  ill,  and  defeat  the 
fond  hopes  of  their  parents,  taking  to  vicious  courses,  which  end 
in  poverty,  disgrace,  the  gallows,  &c.  —  I  cannot  for  my  life  tell 
what  cause  for  pride  there  can  possibly  be  in  having  them.  If 
they  were  young  phoenixes,  indeed,  that  were  born  but  one  in  a 
year,  there  might  be  a  pretext.  But  when  they  are  so  common  — 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  which  they  assume  with  their 
husbands  on  these  occasions.  Let  them  look  to  that.  But  why 
we,  who  are  not  their  natural-born  subjects,  should  be  expected 


548  CHARLES  LAMB. 

to  bring  our  spices,  myrrh,  and  incense,  —  our  tribute  and  homage 
of  admiration,  —  I  do  not  see. 

"  Like  as  the.  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant,  even  so  are  the 
young  children  "  ;  so  says  the  excellent  office  in  our  Prayer-book 
appointed  for  the  churching  of  women.  "  Happy  is  the  man  that 
hath  his  quiver  full  of  them  "  :  so  say  I ;  but  then  don't  let  him 
discharge  his  quiver  upon  us  that  are  weaponless ;  —  let  them  be 
arrows,  but  not  to  gall  and  stick  us.  I  have  generally  observed 
that  these  arrows  are  double-headed  :  they  have  two  forks,  to  be 
sure  to  hit  with  one  or  the  other.  As  for  instance,  where  you 
come  into  a  house  which  is  full  of  children,  if  you  happen  to  take 
no  notice  of  them  (you  are  thinking  of  something  else,  perhaps, 
and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  innocent  caresses),  you  are  set  down 
as  untractable,  morose,  a  hater  of  children.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  you  find  them  more  than  usually  engaging,  if  you  are  taken  with 
their  pretty  manners,  and  set  about  in  earnest  to  romp  and  play 
with  them,  some  pretext  or  other  is  sure  to  be  found  for  sending 
them  out  of  the  room  :  they  are  too  noisy  or  boisterous,  or  Mr. 

does  not  like  children.  With  one  or  other  of  these  forks 

the  arrow  is  sure  to  hit  you. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense  with  toying  with 
their  brats,  if  it  gives  them  pain ;  but  I  think  it  unreasonable  to 
be  called  upon  to  love  them,  where  I  see  no  occasion,  —  to  love  a 
whole  family,  perhaps,  eight,  nine,  or  ten,  indiscriminately,  —  to 
love  all  the  pretty  dears,  because  children  are  so  engaging. 

I  know  there  is  a  proverb,  "  Love  me,  love  my  dog  "  ; 9  that  is 
not  always  so  very  practicable,  particularly  if  the  dog  be  set  upon 
you  to  tease  you  or  snap  at  you  in  sport.  But  a  dog,  or  a  lesser 
thing,  —  any  inanimate  substance,  as  a  keepsake,  a  watch  or  a 
ring,  a  tree,  or  the  place  where  we  last  parted  when  my  friend 
went  away  upon  a  long  absence,  I  can  make  shift  to  love,  because 
I  love  him,  and  anything  that  reminds  me  of  him ;  provided  it  be 
in  its  nature  indifferent,  and  apt  to  receive  whatever  hue  fancy  can 
give  it.  But  children  have  a  real  character  and  essential  being  of 

9  See  Lamb's  Popular  Fallacies,  No.  X. 


THE  ESSA  YS   OF  EL1A.  549 

themselves  :  they  are  amiable  or  unamiable  per  se ;  I  must  love  or 
hate  them  as  I  see  cause  for  either  in  their  qualities.  A  child's 
nature  is  too  serious  a  thing  to  admit  of  its  being  regarded  as  a 
mere  appendage  to  another  being,  and  to  be  loved  or  hated 
accordingly  :  they  stand  with  me  upon  their  own  stock,  as  much 
as  men  and  women  do.  O  !  but  you  will  say,  sure  it  is  an  attrac- 
tive age,  —  there  is  something  in  the  tender  years  of  infancy  that 
of  itself  charms  us.  That  is  the  very  reason  why  I  am  more  nice 
about  them.  I  know  that  a  sweet  child  is  the  sweetest  thing  in 
nature,  not  even  excepting  the  delicate  creatures  which  bear  them  ; 
but  the  prettier  the  kind  of  a  thing  is,  the  more  desirable  it  is  that 
it  should  be  pretty  of  its  kind.  One  daisy  differs  not  much  from 
another  in  glory ;  but  a  violet  should  look  and  smell  the  daintiest. 
—  I  was  always  rather  squeamish  in  my  women  and  children. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst :  one  must  be  admitted  into  their  famil- 
iarity, at  least,  before  they  can  complain  of  inattention.  It  implies 
visits,  apd  some  kind  of  intercourse.  But  if  the  husband  be  a 
man  with  whom  you  have  lived  on  a  friendly  footing  before  mar- 
riage, —  if  you  did  not  come  in  on  the  wife's  side,  —  if  you  did 
not  sneak  into  the  house  in  her  train,  but  were  an  old  friend  in 
fast  habits  of  intimacy  before  their  courtship  was  so  much  as 
thought  on,  —  look  about  you  —  your  tenure  is  precarious  —  before 
a  twelvemonth  shall  roll  over  your  head,  you  shall  find  your  old 
friend  gradually  grow  cool  and  altered  towards  you,  and  at  last 
seek  opportunities  of  breaking  with  you.  I  have  scarce  a  married 
friend  of  my  acquaintance,  upon  whose  firm  faith  I  can  rely,  whose 
friendship  did  not  commence  after  the  period  of  his  marriage. 
With  some  limitations  they  can  endure  that :  but  that  the  good 
man  should  have  dared  to  enter  into  a  solemn  league  of  friendship 
in  which  they  were  not  consulted,  though  it  happened  before  they 
knew  him, —  before  they  that  are  now  man  and  wife  ever  met,  — 
this  is  intolerable  to  them.  Every  long  friendship,  every  old  authen- 
tic intimacy,  must  be  brought  into  their  office  to  be  new  stamped 
with  their  currency,  as  a  sovereign  Prince  calls  in  the  good  old 
money  that  was  coined  in  some  reign  before  he  was  born  or  thought 


550  CHARLES  LAMB. 

of,  to  be  new  marked  and  minted  with  the  stamp  of  his  authority, 
before  he  will  let  it  pass  current  in  the  world.  You  may  guess 
what  luck  generally  befalls  such  a  rusty  piece  of  metal  as  I  am  in 
these  new  mintings. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  which  they  take  to  insult  and  worm 
you  out  of  their  husband's  confidence.  Laughing  at  all  you  say 
with  a  kind  of  wonder,  as  if  you  were  a  queer  kind  of  fellow  that 
said  good  things,  but  an  oddity,  is  one  of  the  ways  ;  —  they  have  a 
particular  kind  of  stare  for  the  purpose  ;  —  till  at  last  the  husband, 
who  used  to  defer  to  your  judgment,  and  would  pass  over  some 
excrescences  of  understanding  and  manner  for  the  sake  of  a  gen- 
eral vein  of  observation  (not  quite  vulgar)  which  he  perceived  in 
you,  begins  to  suspect  whether  you  are  not  altogether  a  humourist, 
—  a  fellow  well  enough  to  have  consorted  with  in  his  bachelor  days, 
but  not  quite  so  proper  to  be  introduced  to  ladies.  This  may  be 
called  the  staring  way ;  and  is  that  which  has  oftenest  been  put  in 
practice  against  me. 

Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or  the  way  of  irony  :  that 
is,  where  they  find  you  an  object  of  especial  regard  with  their 
husband,  who  is  not  so  easily  to  be  shaken  from  the  lasting  attach- 
ment founded  on  esteem,  which  he  has  conceived  towards  you, 
by  never-qualified  exaggerations  to  cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do, 
till  the  good  man,  who  understands  well  enough  that  it  is  all  done 
in  compliment  to  him,  grows  weary  of  the  debt  of  gratitude 
which  is  due  to  so  much  candour,  and  by  relaxing  a  little  on  his 
part,  and  taking  down  a  peg  or  two  in  his  enthusiasm,  sinks  at 
length  to  that  kindly  level  of  moderate  esteem,  —  that  "  decent 
affection  and  complacent  kindness  "  towards  you,  where  she  herself 
can  join  in  sympathy  with  him  without  much  stretch  and  violence 
to  her  sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  accomplish  so  desirable 
a  purpose  are  infinite)  is,  with  a  kind  of  innocent  simplicity,  con- 
tinually to  mistake  what  it  was  which  first  made  their  husband  fond 
of  you.  If  an  esteem  for  something  excellent  in  your  moral 
character  was  that  which  riveted  the  chain  which  she  is  to  break, 


THE  ESS  A  YS   OF  ELI  A.  551 

upon  any  imaginary  discovery  of  a  want  of  poignancy  in  your  con- 
versation, she  will  cry,  "I  thought,  my  dear,  you  described  your 

friend,  Mr. ,  as  a  great  wit."     If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  for 

some  supposed  charm  in  your  conversation  that  he  first  grew  to 
like  you,  and  was  content  for  this  to  overlook  some  trifling  irreg- 
ularities in  your  moral  deportment,  upon  the  first  notice  of  any 
of  these  she  as  readily  exclaims,  "This,  my  dear,  is  your  good 
Mr. ."  One  good  lady,  whom  I  took  the  liberty  of  expostulat- 
ing with  for  not  showing  me  quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought  due 
to  her  husband's  old  friend,  had  the  candour  to  confess  to  me  that 

she  had  often  heard  Mr. speak  of  me  before  marriage,  and 

that  she  had  conceived  a  great  desire  to  be  acquainted  with  me, 
but  that  the  sight  of  me  had  very  much  disappointed  her  expecta- 
tions ;  for  from  her  husband's  representations  of  me,  she  had 
formed  a  notion  that  she  was  to  see  a  fine,  tall,  officer-looking  man 
(I  use  her  very  words)  ;  the  very  reverse  of  which  proved  to  be 
the  truth.  This  was  candid  ;  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to  ask  her 
in  return,  how  she  came  to  pitch  upon  a  standard  of  personal 
accomplishments  for  her  husband's  friends  which  differed  so  much 
from  his  own ;  for  my  friend's  dimensions  as  near  as  possible 
approximate  to  mine ;  he  standing  five  feet  five  in  his  shoes,  in 
which  I  have  the  advantage  of  him  by  about  half  an  inch  ;  and  he 
no  more  than  myself  exhibiting  any  indications  of  a  martial  char- 
acter in  his  air  or  countenance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  which  I  have  encountered 
in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit  at  their  houses.  To  enumerate  them 
all  would  be  a  vain  endeavour :  I  shall  therefore  just  glance  at 
the  very  common  impropriety  of  which  married  ladies  are  guilty,  — 
of  treating  us  as  if  we  were  their  husbands,  and  vice  versa.  I 
mean,  when  they  use  us  with  familiarity,  and  their  husbands  with 
ceremony.  Testacea,  for  instance,  kept  me  the  other  night  two  or 
three  hours  beyond  my  usual  time  of  supping,  while  she  was  fret- 
ting because  Mr.  —  —  did  not  come  home  till  the  oysters  were  all 
spoiled,  rather  than  she  would  be  guilty  of  the  impoliteness  of 
touching  one  in  his  absence.  This  was  reversing  the  point  of  good 


552  CHARLES  LAMB. 

manners  :  for  ceremony  is  an  invention  to  take  off  the  uneasy 
feeling  which  we  derive  from  knowing  ourselves  to  be  less  the 
object  of  love  and  esteem  with  a  fellow-creature  than  some  other 
person  is.  It  endeavours  to  make  up,  by  superior  attentions  in 
little  points,  for  that  invidious  preference  which  it  is  forced  to 
deny  in  the  greater.  Had  Tcstacea  kept  the  oysters  back  for  me, 
and  withstood  her  husband's  importunities  to  go  to  supper,  she 
would  have  acted  according  to  the  strict  rules  of  propriety.  I 
know  no  ceremony  that  ladies  are  bound  to  observe  to  their  hus- 
bands, beyond  the  point  of  a  modest  behaviour  and  decorum  : 
therefore  I  must  protest  against  the  vicarious  gluttony  of  Cerasia, 
who  at  her  own  table  sent  away  a  dish  of  Morellas,  which  I  was 
applying  to  with  great  good  will,  to  her  husband  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  and  recommended  a  plate  of  less  extraordinary 
gooseberries  to  my  unwedded  palate  in  their  stead.  Neither  can 

I  excuse  the  wanton  affront  of . 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married  acquaintance  by 
Roman  denominations.  Let  them  amend  and  change  their  man- 
ners, or  I  promise  to  record  the  full-length  English  of  their  names 
to  the  terror  of  all  such  desperate  offenders  in  future. 


3.   THE  GENTEEL  STYLE  IN  WRITING." 

It  is  an  ordinary  criticism,  that  my  Lord  Shaftesbury,11  and  Sir 
William  Temple,  are  models  of  the  genteel  style  in  writing.  We 
should  prefer  saying — of  the  lordly,  and  the  gentlemanly. 
Nothing  can  be  more  unlike  than  the  inflated  finical  rhapsodies  of 
Shaftesbury,  and  the  plain  natural  chit-chat  of  Temple.  The  man 

10  From  The  New  Monthly  Magazine,  March,   1826.     Printed  among  The 
Last  Essays  of  Elia.  —  When  this  paper  was  originally  published  in  the  New 
Monthly,  it  appeared  as  the   fourteenth   of  the  Popular  Fallacies,  under  the 
heading  "  That  my  Lord  Shaftesbury  and  Sir  William  Temple  are  models  of 
the  Genteel  Style  of  Writing."  —  MORLKY. 

11  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  the  third  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  and  author  of  the 
Characteristics. 


THE  ESSA  YS  OF  ELI  A.  553 

of  rank  is  discernible  in  both  writers  :  but  in  the  one  it  is  only 
insinuated  gracefully,  in  the  other  it  stands  out  offensively.  The 
peer  seems  to  have  written  with  his  coronet  on,  and  the  Earl's 
mantle  before  him ;  the  commoner  in  his  elbow  chair  and  un- 
dressed. —  What  can  be  more  pleasant  than  the  way  in  which  the 
retired  statesman  peeps  out  in  the  essays,  penned  by  the  latter  in 
his  delightful  retreat  at  Shene?  They  scent  of  Nimeguen,  and 
the  Hague.  Scarce  an  authority  is  quoted  under  an  ambassador. 
Don  Francisco  de  Melo,  a  "  Portugal  Envoy  in  England,"  tells  him 
it  was  frequent  in  his  country  for  men,  spent  with  age  or  other 
decays,  so  as  they  could  not  hope  for  above  a  year  or  two  of  life, 
to  ship  themselves  away  in  a  Brazil  fleet,  and  after  their  arrival 
there  to  go  on  a  great  length,  sometimes  for  twenty  or  thirty  years, 
or  more,  by  the  force  of  that  vigour  they  recovered  with  that 
remove.  "  Whether  such  an  effect "  (Temple  beautifully  adds) 
"  might  grow  from  the  air,  or  the  fruits  of  that  climate,  or  by 
approaching  nearer  the  sun,  which  is  the  fountain  of  light  and 
heat,  when  their  natural  heat  was  so  far  decayed  :  or  whether  the 
piecing  out  of  an  old  man's  life  were  worth  the  pains ;  I  cannot 
tell:  perhaps  the  play  is  not  worth  the  candle."  —  Monsieur 
Pompone,  "  French  Ambassador  in  his  (Sir  William's)  time  at  the 
Hague,"  certifies  him,  that  in  his  life  he  had  never  heard  of  any 
man  in  France  that  arrived  at  a  hundred  years  of  age ;  a  limita- 
tion of  life  which  the  old  gentleman  imputes  to  the  excellence  of 
their  climate,  giving  them  such  a  liveliness  of  temper  and  humour, 
as  disposes  them  to  more  pleasures  of  all  kinds  than  in  other 
countries ;  and  moralizes  upon  the  matter  very  sensibly.  The 
"  late  Robert  Earl  of  Leicester  "  furnishes  him  with  a  story  of  a 
Countess  of  Desmond,  married  out  of  England  in  Edward  the 
Fourth's  time,  and  who  lived  far  in  King  James's  reign.  The 
"  same  noble  person  "  gives  him  an  account,  how  such  a  year,  in 
the  same  reign,  there  went  about  the  country  a  set  of  morrice- 
dancers,12  composed  of  ten  men  who  danced,  a  Maid  Marian,  and 

12  See  Douce's  Illustrations  of  Shakspeare,  Illustration  III.  p.  576,  for  an 
account  of  the  morris-dance. 


554  CHARLES  LAMB. 

a  tabor  and  pipe ;  and  how  these  twelve,  one  with  another,  made 
up  twelve  hundred  years.  "  It  was  not  so  much"  (says  Temple) 
"that  so  many  in  one  small  county  (Herefordshire)  should  live  to 
that  age,  as  that  they  should  be  in  vigour  and  in  humour  to  travel 
and  to  dance."  Monsieur  Zulichem,  one  of  his  "  colleagues  at 
the  Hague,"  informs  him  of  a  cure  for  the  gout ;  which  is  con- 
firmed by  another  "  Envoy,"  Monsieur  Serinchamps,  in  that  town, 
who  had  tried  it.  — Old  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  recommends  to 
him  the  use  of  hammocks  in  that  complaint ;  having  been  allured 
to  sleep,  while  suffering  under  it  himself,  by  the  "  constant  motion 
or  swinging  of  those  airy  beds."  Count  Egmont,  and  the  Rhine- 
grave,  who  "  was  killed  last  summer  before  Maestricht,"  impart  to 
him  their  experiences. 

But  the  rank  of  the  writer  is  never  more  innocently  disclosed, 
than  where  he  takes  for  granted  the  compliments  paid  by  foreigners 
to  his  fruit-trees.  For  the  taste  and  perfection  of  what  we  esteem 
the  best,  he  can  truly  say,  that  the  French,  who  have  eaten  his 
peaches  and  grapes  at  Shene  in  no  very  ill  year,  have  generally 
concluded  that  the  last  are  as  good  as  any  they  have  eaten  in 
France  on  this  side  Fontainebleau ;  and  the  first  as  good  as  any 
they  have  eat  in  Gascony.  Italians  have  agreed  his  white  figs  to 
be  as  good  as  any  of  that  sort  in  Italy,  which  is  the  earlier  kind 
of  white  fig  there  ;  for  in  the  latter  kind  and  the  blue,  we  cannot 
come  near  the  warm  climates,  no  more  than  in  the  Frontignac  or 
Muscat  grape.  His  orange  trees,  too,  are  as  large  as  any  he  saw 
when  he  was  young  in  France,  except  those  of  Fontainebleau,  or 
what  he  has  seen  in  the  Low  Countries ;  except  some  very  old 
ones  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's.  Of  grapes  he  had  the  honour  of 
bringing  over  four  sorts  into  England,  which  he  enumerates,  and 
supposes  that  they  are  all  by  this  time  pretty  common  among  some 
gardeners  in  his  neighbourhood,  as  well  as  several  persons  of 
quality ;  for  he  ever  thought  all  things  of  this  kind  "  the  com- 
moner they  are  made  the  better."  The  garden  pedantry  with 
which  he  asserts  that  'tis  to  little  purpose  to  plant  any  of  the  best 
fruits,  as  peaches  or  grapes,  hardly,  he  doubts,  beyond  Northamp- 


THE  ESSA  YS  OF  ELIA.  555 

tonshire  at  the  farthest  northwards ;  and  praises  the  "  Bishop  of 
Munster  at  Cosevelt,"  for  attempting  nothing  beyond  cherries  in 
that  cold  climate  ;  is  equally  pleasant  and  in  character.  "  I  may 
perhaps  "  (he  thus  ends  his  sweet  Garden  Essay  with  a  passage 
worthy  of  Cowley)  "  be  allowed  to  know  something  of  this  trade, 
since  I  have  so  long  allowed  myself  to  be  good  for  nothing  else, 
which  few  men  will  do,  or  enjoy  their  gardens,  without  often  look- 
ing abroad  to  see  how  other  matters  play,  what  motions  in  the 
state,  and  what  invitations  they  may  hope  for  into  other  scenes. 
For  my  own  part,  as  the  country  life,  and  this  part  of  it  more 
particularly,  were  the  inclination  of  my  youth  itself,  so  they  are 
the  pleasure  of  my  age  ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that,  among  many 
great  employments  that  have  fallen  to  my  share,  I  have  never  asked 
or  sought  for  any  of  them,  but  have  often  endeavoured  to  escape 
from  them,  into  the  ease  and  freedom  of  a  private  scene,  where  a 
man  may  go  his  own  way  and  his  own  pace,  in  the  common  paths 
and  circles  of  life.  The  measure  of  choosing  well  is  whether  a 
man  likes  what  he  has  chosen,  which  I  thank  God  has  befallen  me  ; 
and  though  among  the  follies  of  my  life,  building  and  planting 
have  not  been  the  least,  and  have  cost  me  more  than  I  have  the 
confidence  to  own  ;  yet  they  have  been  fully  recompensed  by  the 
sweetness  and  satisfaction  of  this  retreat,  where,  since  my  resolu- 
tion taken  of  never  entering  again  into  any  public  employments,  I 
have  passed  five  years  without  ever  once  going  to  town,  though  I 
am  almost  in  sight  of  it,  and  have  a  house  there  always  ready  to 
receive  me.  Nor  has  this  been  any  sort  of  affectation,  as  some 
have  thought  it,  but  a  mere  want  of  desire  or  humour  to  make  so 
small  a  remove  ;  for  when  I  am  in  this  corner,  I  can  truly  say  with 
Horace,  Me  quoties  reficit,  &c.13 

.* 

" '  Me  when  the  cold  Digentian  stream  revives, 
What  does  my  friend  believe  I  think  or  ask? 
Let  me  yet  less  possess,  so  I  may  live, 
Whate'er  of  life  remains,  unto  myself. 

18  HORACE,  Epistles,  I.  18,  94-102. 


556  CHARLES  LAMB. 

May  I  have  books  enough,  and  one  year's  store, 
Not  to  depend  upon  each  doubtful  hour : 
This  is  enough  of  mighty  Jove  to  pray, 
Who,  as  he  pleases,  gives  and  takes  away.'  " 

The  writings  of  Temple  are,  in  general,  after  this  easy  copy. 
On  one  occasion,  indeed,  his  wit,  which  was  mostly  subordinate  to 
nature  and  tenderness,  has  seduced  him  into  a  string  of  felicitous 
antitheses  :  which,  it  is  obvious  to  remark,  have  been  a  model  to 
Addison  and  succeeding  essayists.  "  Who  would  not  be  covetous, 
and  with  reason,"  he  says,  "if  health  could  be  purchased  with 
gold?  who  not  ambitious  if  it  were  at  the  command  of  power,  or 
restored  by  honour?  but,  alas  !  a  white  staff  will  not  help  gouty 
feet  to  walk  better  than  a  common  cane ;  nor  a  blue  riband  bind 
up  a  wound  so  well  as  a  fillet.  The  glitter  of  gold  or  of  diamonds 
will  but  hurt  sore  eyes  instead  of  curing  them ;  and  an  aching 
head  will  be  no  more  eased  by  wearing  a  crown,  than  a  common 
night  cap."  In  a  far  better  style,  and  more  accordance  with  his 
own  humour  of  plainness,  are  the  concluding  sentences  of  his 
"  Discourse  upon  Poetry."  Temple  took  a  part  in  the  controversy 
about  the  ancient  and  the  modern  learning  ;  and,  with  that  partiality 
so  natural  and  so  graceful  in  an  old  man,  whose  state  engagements 
had  left  him  little  leisure  to  look  into  modern  productions,  while 
his  retirement  gave  him  occasion  to  look  back  upon  the  classic 
studies  of  his  youth  —  decided  in  favour  of  the  latter.  "  Certain 
it  is,"  he  says,  "  that,  whether  the  fierceness  of  the  Gothic  humours, 
or  noise  of  their  perpetual  wars,  frighted  it  away,  or  that  the  un- 
equal mixture  of  the  modern  languages  would  not  bear  it  —  the 
great  heights  and  excellency  both  of  poetry  and  music  fell  with 
the  Roman  learning  and  empire,  and  have  never  since  recovered 
the  admiration  and  applauses  that  before  attended  them.  Yet, 
such  as  they  are  amongst  us,  they  must  be  confessed  to  be  the 
softest  and  sweetest,  the  most  general  and  most  innocent  amuse- 
ments of  common  time  and  life.  They  still  find  room  in  the 
courts  of  princes,  and  the  cottages  of  shepherds.  They  serve  to 
revive  and  animate  the  dead  calm  of  poor  and  idle  lives,  and  to 


THE  ESSA  YS   OF  ELI  A.  557 

allay  or  divert  the  violent  passions  and  perturbations  of  the  greatest 
and  the  busiest  men.  And  both  these  effects  are  of  equal  use  to 
human  life ;  for  the  mind  of  man  is  like  the  sea,  which  is  neither 
agreeable  to  the  beholder  nor  the  voyager,  in  a  calm  or  in  a  storm, 
but  is  so  to  both  when  a  little  agitated  by  gentle  gales ;  and  so  the 
mind,  when  moved  by  soft  and  easy  passions  or  affections.  I 
know  very  well  that  many  who  pretend  to  be  wise  by  the  forms  of 
being  grave,  are  apt  to  despise  both  poetry  and  music,  as  toys  and 
trifles  too  light  for  the  use  or  entertainment  of  serious  men.  But 
whoever  find  themselves  wholly  insensible  to  their  charms,  would, 
I  think,  do  well  to  keep  their  own  counsel,  for  fear  of  reproaching 
their  own  temper,  and  bringing  the  goodness  of  their  natures,  if 
not  of  their  understandings,  into  question.  While  this  world  lasts, 
I  doubt  not  but  the  pleasure  and  request  of  these  two  entertain- 
ments will  do  so  too ;  and  happy  those  that  content  themselves 
with  these,  or  any  other  so  easy  and  so  innocent,  and  do  not 
trouble  the  world  or  other  men,  because  they  cannot  be  quiet 
themselves,  though  nobody  hurts  them."  "  When  all  is  done  " 
(he  concludes),  "  human  life  is  at  the  greatest  and  the  best  but 
like  a  froward  child,  that  must  be  played  with,  and  humoured  a 
little,  to  keep  it  quiet,  till  it  falls  asleep,  and  then  the  care  is 
over."  " 

14  Temple's  four  essays  quoted  by  Lamb,  namely,  Of  Gardening,  Of  Health 
and  Long  Life,  The  Cure  of  the  Gout  by  Moxa,  and  Of  Poetry,  will  be  found 
in  Vol.  III.  of  his  Works,  London,  1814. 


XXVIII. 

ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

(1774-1843.) 

SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR. 

[Written  about  1835.] 

CHAPTER  VI.  P.  I.  —  A  COLLECTION  OF  BOOKS  NONE  OF  WHICH 
ARE  INCLUDED  AMONGST  THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  ANY  SOCIETY  FOR 
THE  PROMOTION  OF  KNOWLEDGE,  RELIGIOUS  OR  PROFANE.  — 
HAPPINESS  IN  HUMBLE  LIFE. 

HAPPILY  for  Daniel,1  he  lived  before  the  age  of  Magazines, 
Reviews,  Cyclopaedias,  Elegant  Extracts,  and  Literary  Newspapers, 
so  that  he  gathered  the  fruit  of  knowledge  for  himself,  instead  of 
receiving  it  from  the  dirty  fingers  of  a  retail  vender.  His  books 
were  few  in  number,  but  they  were  all  weighty  either  in  matter  or 
in  size.  They  consisted  of  the  Morte  d'Arthur  in  the  fine  black- 
letter  edition  of  Copeland ;  Plutarch's  Morals  and  Pliny's  Natural 
History,  two  goodly  folios,  full  as  an  egg  of  meat,  and  both  trans- 
lated by  that  old  worthy  Philemon,  who  for  the  service  which  he 
rendered  to  his  contemporaries  and  to  his  countrymen  deserves  to 
be  called  the  best  of  the  Hollands,  without  disparaging  either  the 
Lord  or  the  Doctor  of  that  appellation ;  the  whole  works  of 
Joshua  Sylvester  (whose  name,  let  me  tell  the  reader  in  passing,  was 
accented  upon  the  first  syllable  by  his  contemporaries,  not  as  now 

1  Daniel  Dove,  Sr.,  father  of  "The  Doctor";   for,  according  to  Southey, 
"  Daniel,  the  son  of  Daniel  Dove,  and  of  Dinah  his  wife,  was  born  near  Ingle- 
ton,  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  on  Monday,  the  twenty-second  of  April, 
old  style,  1723,  nine  minutes  and  three  seconds  after  three  in  the  afternoon." 
558 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  559 

upon  the  second) ;  —  Jean  Petit's  History  of  the  Netherlands, 
translated  and  continued  by  Edward  Grimestone,  another  worthy 
of  the  Philemon  order ;  Sir  Kenelm  Digby's  Discourses ;  Stowe's 
Chronicle  ;  Joshua  Barnes's  Life  of  Edward  III. ;  Ripley  Revived, 
by  Eirenaeus  Philalethes,  an  Englishman  styling  himself  "  Citizen 
of  the  World,"  with  its  mysterious  frontispiece  representing  the 
Domus  Natura,  to  which  Nil  deest,  nisi  clavis* ;  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  ;  two  volumes  of  Ozell's  translation  of  Rabelais  ;  Latimer's 
Sermons  ;  and  the  last  volume  of  Fox's  Martyrs,  which  latter  book 
had  been  brought  him  by  his  wife.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  a 
godmother's  present  to  his  son ;  the  odd  volumes  of  Rabelais  he 
had  picked  up  at  Kendal  at  a  sale,  in  a  lot  with  Ripley  Revived 
and  the  Plutarch's  Morals  :  the  others  he  had  inherited. 

Daniel  had  looked  into  all  these  books,  read  most  of  them,  and 
believed  all  that  he  read,  except  Rabelais,  which  he  could  not  tell 
what  to  make  of.  He  was  not,  however,  one  of  those  persons  who 
complacently  suppose  everything  to  be  nonsense,  which  they  do 
not  perfectly  comprehend,  or  flatter  themselves  that  they  do.  His 
simple  heart  judged  of  books  by  what  they  ought  to  be,  little  know- 
ing what  they  are.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  any  thing  would 
be  printed  which  was  not  worth  printing,  any  thing  which  did  not 
convey  either  reasonable  delight  or  useful  instruction ;  and  he  was 
no  more  disposed  to  doubt  the  truth  of  what  he  read,  than  to 
question  the  veracity  of  his  neighbour,  or  any  one  who  had  no  in- 
terest in  deceiving  him.  A  book  carried  with  it  to  him  authority 
in  its  very  aspect.  The  Morte  d'Arthur  therefore  he  received  for 
authentic  history  just  as  he  did  the  painful  chronicle  of  honest  John 
Stowe,  and  the  Barnesian  labours  of  Joshua  the  self-satisfied  : 
there  was  nothing  in  it  indeed  which  stirred  his  English  blood  like 
the  battles  of  Cressy  and  Poictiers  and  Najara ;  yet  on  the  whole 
he  preferred  it  to  Barnes's  story,  believed  in  Sir  Tor,  Sir  Tristram, 
Sir  Lancelot,  and  Sir  Lamorack  as  entirely  as  in  Sir  John  Chandos, 
the  Capital  de  Buche  and  the  Black  Prince,  and  liked  them 
better. 

2  the  House  of  Nature,  to  which  nothing  is  wanting  except  a  key. 


560  ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

Latimer  and  Du  Bartas 3  he  used  sometimes  to  read  aloud  on 
Sundays ;  and  if  the  departed  take  cognizance  of  what  passes  on 
earth,  and  poets  derive  any  satisfaction  from  the  posthumous  ap- 
plause which  is  generally  the  only  reward  of  those  who  deserve  it, 
Sylvester  might  have  found  some  compensation  for  the  undeserved 
neglect  into  which  his  works  had  sunk,  by  the  full  and  devout 
delight  which  his  rattling  rhymes  and  quaint  collections  afforded 
to  this  reader.  The  silver-tongued  Sylvester,  however,  was  reserved 
for  a  Sabbath-book  ;  as  a  week-day  author  Daniel  preferred  Pliny, 
for  the  same  reason  that  bread  and  cheese,  or  a  rasher  of  hung 
mutton,  contented  his  palate  better  than  a  syllabub.  He  frequently 
regretted  that  so  knowing  a  writer  had  never  seen  or  heard  of 
Wethercote  and  Yordas  caves,  the  ebbing  and  flowing  spring  at 
Giggleswick,  Malham  Cove,  and  Gordale  Scar,  that  he  might  have 
described  them  among  the  wonders  of  the  world.  Omne  ignotum 
pro  magnifico 4  is  a  maxim  which  will  not  in  all  cases  hold  good. 
There  are  things  which  we  do  not  undervalue  because  we  are 
familiar  with  them,  but  which  are  admired  the  more  the  more 
thoroughly  they  are  known  and  understood ;  it  is  thus  with  the 
grand  objects  of  nature  and  the  finest  works  of  art,  with  whatso- 
ever is  truly  great  and  excellent.  Daniel  was  not  deficient  in 
imagination ;  but  no  description  of  places  which  he  had  never 
seen,  however  exaggerated  (as  such  things  always  are),  impressed 
him  so  strongly  as  these  objects  in  his  own  neighbourhood,  which 
he  had  known  from  childhood.  Three  or  four  times  in  his  life  it 
had  happened  that  strangers,  with  a  curiosity  as  uncommon  in  that 
age  as  it  is  general  in  this,  came  from  afar  to  visit  these  wonders 
of  the  West  Riding,  and  Daniel  accompanied  them  with  a  delight 
such  as  he  never  experienced  on  any  other  occasion. 

But  the  Author  in  whom  he  delighted  most  was  Plutarch,  of 
whose  works  he  was  lucky  enough  to  possess  the  worthier  half: 
if  the  other  had  perished,  Plutarch  would  not  have  been  a  popular 
writer,  but  he  would  have  held  a  higher  place  in  the  estimation  of 

3  i.e.  Sylvester's  translation  of  Du  Bartas's  "  Divine  Weeks  and  Works  "  (1598). 
*  Everything  unknown  as  wonderful. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  561 

the  judicious.  Daniel  could  have  posed  a  candidate  for  univer- 
sity honours,  and  perhaps  the  examiner  too,  with  some  of  the  odd 
learning  which  he  had  stored  up  in  his  memory  from  those  great 
repositories  of  ancient  knowledge.  Refusing  all  reward  for  such 
services,  the  strangers  to  whom  he  officiated  as  a  guide,  though 
they  perceived  that  he  was  an  extraordinary  person,  were  little 
aware  how  much  information  he  had  acquired  and  of  how  strange 
a  kind.  His  talk  with  them  did  not  go  beyond  the  subjects  which 
the  scenes  they  came  to  visit  naturally  suggested,  and  they  won- 
dered more  at  the  questions  he  asked,  than  at  any  thing  which  he 
advanced  himself.  For  his  disposition  was  naturally  shy,  and 
that  which  had  been  bashfulness  in  youth  assumed  the  appear- 
ance of  reserve  as  he  advanced  in  life  ;  for  having  none  to  com- 
municate with  upon  his  favourite  studies,  he  lived  in  an  intellectual 
world  of  his  own,  a  mental  solitude  as  complete  as  that  of  Alex- 
ander Selkirk  or  Robinson  Crusoe.  Even  to  the  Curate  his  con- 
versation, if  he  had  touched  upon  his  books,  would  have  been 
heathen  Greek ;  and  to  speak  the  truth  plainly,  without  knowing 
a  letter  of  that  language,  he  knew  more  about  the  Greeks  than 
nine-tenths  of  the  clergy  at  that  time,  including  all  the  dissenters, 
and  than  nine-tenths  of  the  schoolmasters  also. 

Our  good  Daniel  had  none  of  that  confidence  which  so  usually 
and  so  unpleasantly  characterizes  self-taught  men.  In  fact  he  was 
by  no  means  aware  of  the  extent  of  his  acquirements,  all  that  he 
knew  in  this  kind  having  been  acquired  for  amusement  not  for 
use.  He  had  never  attempted  to  teach  himself  anything.  These 
books  had  lain  in  his  way  in  boyhood,  or  fallen  in  it  afterwards, 
and  the  perusal  of  them,  intently  as  it  was  followed,  was  always 
accounted  by  him  to  be  nothing  more  than  recreation.  None  of 
his  daily  business  had  ever  been  neglected  for  it ;  he  cultivated 
his  fields  and  his  garden,  repaired  his  walls,  looked  to  the  stable, 
tended  his  cows  and  salved  his  sheep,  as  diligently  and  as  con- 
tentedly as  if  he  had  possessed  neither  capacity  nor  inclination  for 
any  higher  employments.  Yet  Daniel  was  one  of  those  men,  who, 
if  disposition  and  aptitude  were  not  over-ruled  by  circumstances, 


562  ROBERT  SOU  THEY. 

would  have  grown  pale  with  study,  instead  of  being  bronzed  and 
hardened  by  sun  and  wind  and  rain.  There  were  in  him  unde- 
veloped talents  which  might  have  raised  him  to  distinction  as  an 
antiquary,  a  virtuoso  of  the  Royal  Society,  a  poet,  or  a  theologian, 
to  whichever  course  the  bias  in  his  ball  of  fortune  had  inclined. 
But  he  had  not  a  particle  of  envy  in  his  composition.  He  thought 
indeed  that  if  he  had  had  grammar  learning  in  his  youth  like  the 
Curate,  he  would  have  made  more  use  of  it ;  but  there  was  noth- 
ing either  of  the  sourness  or  bitterness  (call  it  which  you  please) 
of  repining  in  this  natural  reflection. 

Never  indeed  was  any  man  more  contented  with  doing  his  duty 
in  that  state  of  life  to  which  it  had  pleased  God  to  call  him.  And 
well  he  might  do  so,  for  no  man  ever  passed  through  the  world 
with  less  to  disquiet  or  to  sour  him.  Bred  up  in  habits  which  se- 
cured the  continuance  of  that  humble  but  sure  independence  to 
which  he  was  born,  he  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  be  anxious 
for  the  future.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  had  brought  home  a 
wife,  the  daughter  of  a  little  landholder  like  himself,  with  fifteen 
pounds  for  her  portion,  and  the  true  love  of  his  youth  proved  to  him 
a  faithful  helpmate  in  those  years  when  the  dream  of  life  is  over 
and  we  live  in  realities.  If  at  any  time  there  had  been  some  alloy 
in  his  happiness,  it  was  when  there  appeared  reason  to  suppose 
that  in  him  his  family  would  be  extinct ;  for  though  no  man  knows 
what  parental  feelings  are  till  he  has  experienced  them,  and  Daniel 
therefore  knew  not  the  whole  value  of  that  which  he  had  never  en- 
joyed, the  desire  of  progeny  is  natural  to  the  heart  of  man ;  and 
though  Daniel  had  neither  large  estates,  nor  an  illustrious  name  to 
transmit,  it  was  an  unwelcome  thought  that  the  little  portion  of  the 
earth  which  had  belonged  to  his  fathers  time  out  of  mind,  should 
pass  into  the  possession  of  some  stranger,  who  would  tread  on  their 
graves  and  his  own  without  any  regard  to  the  dust  that  lay  beneath. 
That  uneasy  apprehension  was  removed  after  he  had  been  married 
fifteen  years,  when  to  the  great  joy  of  both  parents,  because  they 
had  long  ceased  to  entertain  any  hope  of  such  an  event,  their 
wishes  were  fulfilled  in  the  birth  of  a  son.  This  their  only  child 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  563 

was  healthy,  apt  and  docile,  to  all  appearance  as  happily  disposed 
in  mind  and  body  as  a  father's  heart  could  wish.  If  they  had  fine 
weather  for  winning  their  hay  or  shearing  their  corn,  they  thanked 
God  for  it ;  if  the  season  proved  unfavourable,  the  labour  was  only 
a  little  the  more  and  the  crop  a  little  the  worse.  Their  stations 
secured  them  from  want,  and  they  had  no  wish  beyond  it.  What 
more  had  Daniel  to  desire  ? 5 


CHAPTER  IX.   P.   I.  —  EXCEPTIONS  TO  ONE  OF  KING  SOLOMON'S 
RULES.  —  A  WINTER'S  EVENING  AT  DANIEL'S  FIRESIDE. 

"  Train  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go,  and  when  he  is  old, 
his  feet  will  not  depart  from  it."  Generally  speaking  it  will  be 
found  so ;  but  is  there  any  other  rule  to  which  there  are  so  many 
exceptions  ? 

Ask  the  serious  Christian,  as  he  calls  himself,  or  the  Professor 
(another  and  more  fitting  appellative  which  the  Christian  Pharisees 
have  chosen  for  themselves)  —  ask  him  whether  he  has  found  it 
hold  good  ?  Whether  his  sons  when  they  attained  to  years  of  dis- 
cretion (which  are  the  most  indiscreet  years  in  the  course  of  human 
life)  have  profited  as  he  expected  by  the  long  extemporaneous 
prayers  to  which  they  listened  night  and  morning,  the  sad  sabbaths 
which  they  were  compelled  to  observe,  and  the  soporific  sermons 
which  closed  the  domestic  religiosities  of  those  melancholy  days  ? 
Ask  him  if  this  discipline  has  prevented  them  from  running  head- 
long into  the  follies  and  vices  of  the  age  ?  from  being  birdlimed 
by  dissipation?  or  caught  in  the  spider's  web  of  sophistry  and 
unbelief  ?  "  It  is  no  doubt  a  true  observation,"  says  Bishop  Pat- 
rick, "  that  the  ready  way  to  make  the  minds  of  youth  grow  awry, 
is  to  lace  them  too  hard,  by  denying  them  their  just  freedom." 

Ask  the  old  faithful  servant  of  Mammon,  whom  Mammon  has 
rewarded  to  his  heart's  desire,  and  in  whom  the  acquisition  of 
riches  has  only  increased  his  eagerness  for  acquiring  more  —  ask 

5  Here  follows  a  poetical  passage  from  Du  Bartas,  a  favourite  one  of  Daniel's. 


564  ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

him  whether  he  has  succeeded  in  training  up  his  heir  to  the  same 
service  ?  He  will  tell  you  that  the  young  man  is  to  be  found  upon 
race-grounds,  and  in  gaming-houses ;  that  he  is  taking  his  swing  of 
extravagance  and  excess,  and  is  on  the  high  road  to  ruin. 

Ask  the  wealthy  Quaker,  the  pillar  of  the  meeting  —  most  ortho- 
dox in  heterodoxy  —  who  never  wore  a  garment  of  forbidden  cut 
or  color,  never  bent  his  body  in  salutation,  or  his  knees  in  prayer, 
—  never  uttered  the  heathen  name  of  a  day  or  month,  nor  ever 
addressed  himself  to  any  person  without  religiously  speaking  ille- 
gitimate English  —  ask  him  how  it  has  happened  that  the  tailor 
has  converted  his  sons?  He  will  fold  his  hands  and  twirl  his 
thumbs  mournfully  in  silence.  It  has  not  been  for  want  of  train- 
ing them  in  the  way  wherein  it  was  his  wish  that  they  should  go. 

You  are  about,  Sir,  to  send  your  son  to  a  public  school :  Eton 
or  Westminster;  Winchester  or  Harrow;  Rugby  or  the  Charter 
House,  no  matter  which.  He  may  come  from  either  an  accom- 
plished scholar  to  the  utmost  extent  that  school  education  can 
make  him  so ;  he  may  be  the  better  both  for  its  discipline  and  its 
want  of  discipline  ;  it  may  serve  him  excellently  well  as  a  prepara- 
tory school  for  the  world  into  which  he  is  about  to  enter.  But  also 
he  may  come  away  an  empty  coxcomb  or  a  hardened  brute  —  a 
spendthrift  —  a  profligate  —  a  blackguard  or  a  sot. 

To  put  a  boy  in  the  way  he  should  go,  is  like  sending  out  a  ship 
well  found,  well  manned,  and  stored,  and  with  a  careful  captain ; 
but  there  are  rocks  and  shallows  in  her  course,  winds  and  currents 
to  be  encountered,  and  all  the  contingencies  and  perils  of  the  sea. 

How  often  has  it  been  seen  that  sons,  not  otherwise  deficient  in 
duty  toward  their  parents,  have,  in  the  most  momentous  concerns 
of  life,  taken  the  course  most  opposite  to  that  in  which  they  were 
trained  to  go,  going  wrong  where  the  father  would  have  directed 
them  aright,  or  taking  the  right  path  in  spite  of  all  inducements 
and  endeavours  for  leading  them  wrong  !  The  son  of  Charles 
Wesley,  born  and  bred  in  Methodism  and  bound  to  it  by  the 
strongest  ties  of  pride  and  prejudice,  became  a  papist.  This  in- 
deed was  but  passing  from  one  erroneous  persuasion  to  another, 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  565 

and  a  more  inviting  one.  But  Isaac  Casaubon  also  had  the  grief 
of  seeing  a  son  seduced  into  the  Romish  superstition,  and  on  the 
part  of  that  great  and  excellent  man,  there  had  been  no  want  of 
discretion  in  training  him,  nor  of  sound  learning  and  sound  wisdom. 
Archbishop  Leighton,  an  honour  to  his  church,  his  country,  and 
his  kind,  was  the  child  of  one  of  those  firebrands  who  kindled  the 
Great  Rebellion.  And  Franklin  had  a  son,  who,  notwithstanding 
the  example  of  his  father  (and  such  a  father  !),  continued  stedfast 
in  his  duty  as  a  soldier  and  a  subject ;  he  took  the  unsuccessful 
side  —  but  —  nunquam  successn  crescat  honestum  [?]6  No  such 
disappointment  was  destined  to  befal  our  Daniel.  The  way  in 
which  he  trained  up  his  son  was  that  into  which  the  bent  of  the 
boy's  own  nature  would  have  led  him ;  and  all  circumstances  com- 
bined to  favour  the  tendency  of  his  education.  The  country 
abounding  in  natural  objects  of  sublimity  and  beauty  (some  of 
these  singular  in  their  kind)  might  have  impressed  a  duller  imagi- 
nation than  had  fallen  to  his  lot ;  and  that  imagination  had  time 
enough  for  its  workings  during  the  solitary  walks  to  and  from 
school  morning  and  evening.  His  home  was  in  a  lonely  spot  and 
having  neither  brother  nor  sister,  nor  neighbours  near  enough  in 
any  degree  to  supply  their  place  as  playmates,  he  became  his 
father's  companion  imperceptibly  as  he  ceased  to  be  his  fondling. 
And  the  effect  was  hardly  less  apparent  in  Daniel  than  in  the  boy. 
He  was  no  longer  the  taciturn  person  as  of  yore ;  it  seemed  as 
if  his  tongue  had  been  loosened,  and  when  the  reservoirs  of  his 
knowledge  were  opened,  they  flowed  freely. 

Their  chimney  corner  on  a  winter's  evening  presented  a  group 
not  unworthy  of  Sir  Joshua's  pencil.  There  sate  Daniel,  richer  in 
marvellous  stories  than  ever  traveller  who  in  the  days  of  mendacity 
returned  from  the  East ;  the  peat  fire  shining  upon  a  countenance 
which,  weather-hardened  as  it  was,  might  have  given  the  painter  a 
model  for  a  Patriarch,  so  rare  was  the  union  which  it  exhibited  of 

6  Whether  the  honourable  never  prospers  in  the  issue  ?  —  LUCAN,  Pharsalia, 
IX.  571.  It  is  a  question  in  Lucan  dependent  on  566:  Quid  quaeri,  Labiene, 
jubes  ?  What  do  you  bid  to  be  sought  ? 


566  ROBERT  SOU  THEY. 

intelligence,  benevolence,  and  simplicity.  There  sate  the  boy  with 
open  eyes  and  ears,  raised  head,  and  fallen  lip,  in  all  the  happiness 
of  wonder  and  implicit  belief.  There  sate  Dinah,  not  less  proud 
of  her  husband's  learning  than  of  the  towardly  disposition  and 
promising  talents  of  her  son,  —  twirling  the  thread  at  her  spinning- 
wheel,  but  attending  to  all  that  past ;  and  when  there  was  a  pause 
in  the  discourse,  fetching  a  deep  sigh,  and  exclaiming,  "  Lord  bless 
us  !  what  wonderful  things  there  are  in  the  world  !  "  There  also 
sate  Haggy,7  knitting  stockings,  and  sharing  in  the  comforts  and 
enjoyments  of  the  family  when  the  day's  work  was  done.  And 
there  sate  William  Dove; — but  William  must  have  a  chapter  to 
himself. 


CHAPTER  XXVI.  P.  I.  —  DANIEL  AT  DONCASTER  ;  THE  REASON 
WHY  HE  WAS  DESTINED  FOR  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION,  RATHER 
THAN  HOLY  ORDERS;  AND  SOME  REMARKS  UPON  SERMONS. 

Fourteen  years  have  elapsed  since  the  scene  took  place  which 
is  related  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  : 8  and  Daniel  the  younger, 
at  the  time  to  which  this  present  chapter  refers,  was  residing  at 
Doncaster  with  Peter  Hopkins,  who  practised  (he  medical  art  in  all 
its  branches.  He  had  lived  with  him  eight  years,  first  as  a  pupil, 
latterly  in  the  capacity  of  an  assistant,  and  afterwards  as  an 
adopted  successor. 

How  this  connection  between  Daniel  and  Peter  Hopkins  was 
brought  about,  and  the  circumstances  which  prepared  the  way  for 
it,  would  have  appeared  in  some  of  the  non-existent  fourteen  vol- 
umes, if  it  had  pleased  Fate  that  they  should  have  been  written. 

Some  of  my  readers,  and  especially  those  who  pride  themselves 
upon  their  knowledge  of  the  world,  or  their  success  in  it,  will  think 
it  strange,  perhaps,  that  the  elder  Daniel,  when  he  resolved  to 
make  a  scholar  of  his  son,  did  not  determine  upon  breeding  him 

7  "  Agatha  the  maid,  or  Haggy,  as  she  was  called." 

8  A  series  of  quotations  from  Proverbs  about  Wisdom,  repeated  by  Daniel 
the  elder  by  way  of  instruction  to  Daniel  the  younger. 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  567 

either  to  the  Church  or  the  Law,  in  either  of  which  professions  the 
way  was  easier  and  more  inviting.  Now  though  this  will  not  ap- 
pear strange  to  those  other  readers  who  have  perceived  that  the 
father  had  no  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  could  have  none,  it  is 
nevertheless  proper  to  enter  into  some  explanation  upon  that  point. 

If  George  Herbert's  Temple,  or  his  Remains,  or  his  Life  by  old 
Izaak  Walton,  had  all  or  any  of  them  happened  to  be  among  those 
few  but  precious  books  which  Daniel  prized  so  highly  and  used  so 
well,  it  is  likely  that  the  wish  of  his  heart  would  have  been  to  train 
up  his  Son  for  a  Priest  to  the  Temple.  But  so  it  was  that  none  of 
his  reading  was  of  a  kind  to  give  his  thoughts  that  direction ;  and 
he  had  not  conceived  any  exalted  opinion  of  the  Clergy  from  the 
specimens  which  had  fallen  in  his  way.  A  contempt  which  was 
but  too  general  had  been  brought  upon  the  Order  by  the  ignorance 
or  the  poverty  of  a  great  proportion  of  its  members.  The  person 
who  served  the  humble  church  which  Daniel  dutifully  attended 
was  almost  as  poor  as  a  Capuchine,  and  quite  as  ignorant.  This 
poor  man  had  obtained  in  evil  hour  from  some  easy  or  careless 
Bishop  a  licence  to  preach.  It  was  reprehensible  enough  to  have 
ordained  one  who  was  destitute  of  every  qualification  that  the  office 
requires  ;  the  fault  was  still  greater  in  promoting  him  from  the  desk 
to  the  pulpit. 

"  A  very  great  Scholar  "  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Eachard  as  saying, 
"  that  such  preaching  as  is  usual  is  a  hindrance  of  salvation  rather 
than  the  means  to  it."  This  was  said  when  the  fashion  of  con- 
ceited preaching,  which  is  satirised  in  Frey  Gerundio,  had  ex- 
tended to  England,  and  though  that  fashion  has  so  long  been 
obsolete,  that  many  persons  will  be  surprised  to  hear  it  had  ever 
existed  among  us,  it  may  still  reasonably  be  questioned  whether 
sermons,  such  as  they  commonly  are,  do  not  quench  more  devo- 
tion than  they  kindle. 

My  Lord  !  put  not  the  book  aside  in  displeasure  !  (I  address 
myself  to  whatever  Bishop  may  be  reading  it.)  Unbiassed  I  will 
not  call  myself,  for  I  am  a  true  and  orthodox  churchman  and  have 
the  interests  of  the  Church  zealously  at  heart,  because  I  believe  and 


568  ROBERT  SOU  THEY. 

know  them  to  be  essentially  and  inseparably  connected  with  those 
of  the  commonwealth.  But  I  have  been  an  attentive  observer,  and 
as  such,  request  a  hearing.  Receive  my  remarks  as  coming  from 
one  whose  principles  are  in  entire  accord  with  your  Lordship's, 
whose  wishes  have  the  same  scope  and  purport,  and  who,  while  he 
offers  his  honest  opinion,  submits  it  with  proper  humility  to  your 
judgment. 

The  founders  of  the  English  Church  did  not  intend  that  the 
sermon  should  invariably  form  a  part  of  the  Sunday  services.  It 
became  so  in  condescension  to  the  Puritans,  of  whom  it  has  long 
been  the  fashion  to  speak  with  respect  instead  of  holding  them  up 
to  the  contempt  and  infamy  and  abhorrence  which  they  have  so 
richly  merited.  They  have  been  extolled  by  their  descendants 
and  successors  as  models  of  patriotism  and  piety ;  and  the  success 
with  which  this  delusion  has  been  practised  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  examples  of  what  may  be  effected  by  dint  of  effrontery 
and  persevering  falsehood. 

That  sentence  I  am  certain  will  not  be  disapproved  at  Fulham 
or  Lambeth.  Dr.  Southey,  or  Dr.  Phillpots,  might  have  written  it. 

The  general  standard  of  the  Clergy  has  undoubtedly  been  very 
much  raised  since  the  days  when  they  were  not  allowed  to  preach 
without  a  licence  for  that  purpose  from  the  Ordinary.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  certain  that  many  persons  who  are  in  other  and  more 
material  respects  well,  or  even  excellently,  qualified  for  the  ministe- 
rial functions,  may  be  wanting  in  the  qualifications  for  a  preacher. 
A  man  may  possess  great  learning,  sound  principles  and  good 
sense,  and  yet  be  without  the  talent  of  arranging  and  expressing 
his  thoughts  well  in  a  written  discourse  :  he  may  want  the  power 
of  fixing  the  attention,  or  reaching  the  hearts  of  his  hearers ;  and 
in  that  case  the  discourse,  as  some  old  writer  has  said  in  serious 
jest,  which  was  designed  for  edification  turns  to  Edification.  The 
evil  was  less  in  Addison's  days  when  he  who  distrusted  his  own 
abilities  availed  himself  of  the  compositions  of  some  approved 
Divine,  and  was  not  disparaged  in  the  opinion  of  his  congregation 
by  taking  a  printed  volume  in  the  pulpit.  This  is  no  longer  prac- 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  569 

tised ;  but  instead  of  this,  which  secured  wholesome  instruction  to 
the  people,  sermons  are  manufactured  for  sale,  and  sold  in  manu- 
script, or  printed  in  a  cursive  type  imitating  manuscript.  The 
articles  which  are  prepared  for  such  a  market  are,  for  the  most  part, 
copied  from  obscure  books,  with  more  or  less  alteration  of  language, 
and  generally  for  the  worse,  and  so  far  as  they  are  drawn  from  such 
sources  they  are  not  likely  to  contain  any  thing  exceptionable  on 
the  score  of  doctrine  :  but  the  best  authors  will  not  be  resorted  to, 
for  fear  of  discovery,  and  therefore  when  these  are  used,  the  con- 
gregation lose  as  much  in  point  of  instruction,  as  he  who  uses  them 
ought  to  lose  in  self-esteem. 

But  it  is  more  injurious  when  a  more  scrupulous  man  composes 
his  own  discourses,  if  he  be  deficient  either  in  judgment  or  learn- 
ing. He  is  then  more  likely  to  entangle  plain  texts  than  to  unravel 
knotty  ones ;  rash  positions  are  sometimes  advanced  by  such 
preachers,  unsound  arguments  are  adduced  by  them  in  support 
of  momentous  doctrines,  and  though  these  things  neither  offend 
the  ignorant  and  careless,  nor  injure  the  well-minded  and  well-in- 
formed, they  carry  poison  with  them  when  they  enter  a  diseased 
ear.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  such  sermons  act  as  corrobora- 
tives for  infidelity. 

Nor  when  they  contain  nothing  that  is  actually  erroneous,  but 
are  merely  unimproving,  are  they  in  that  case  altogether  harmless. 
They  are  not  harmless  if  they  are  felt  to  be  tedious.  They  are 
not  harmless  if  they  torpify  the  understanding  :  a  chill  that  begins 
there  may  extend  to  the  vital  regions.  Bishop  Taylor  (the  great 
Jeremy)  says  of  devotional  books,  that "  they  are  in  a  large  degree 
the  occasion  of  so  great  indevotion  as  prevails  among  the  gener- 
ality of  nominal  Christians,  being,"  he  says,  "  represented  naked 
in  the  conclusions  of  spiritual  life,  without  or  art  or  learning ;  and 
made  apt  for  persons  who  can  do  nothing  but  believe  and  love, 
not  for  them  that  can  consider  and  love."  This  applies  more 
forcibly  to  bad  sermons  than  to  common-place  books  of  devotion  ; 
the  book  may  be  laid  aside  if  it  offend  the  reader's  judgment,  but 
the  sermon  is  a  positive  infliction  upon  the  helpless  hearers. 


570  ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

The  same  Bishop,  —  and  his  name  ought  to  carry  with  it  author- 
ity among  the  wise  and  the  good  —  has  delivered  an  opinion  upon 
this  subject,  in  his  admirable  Apology  for  Authorized  and  Set 
Forms  of  Liturgy.  "  Indeed,"  he  says,  "  if  I  may  freely  declare 
my  opinion,  I  think  it  were  not  amiss,  if  the  liberty  of  making 
sermons  were  something  more  restrained  than  it  is ;  and  that  such 
persons  only  were  entrusted  with  the  liberty,  for  whom  the  church 
herself  may  safely  be  responsive,  —  that  is,  men  learned  and  pious  ; 
and  that  the  other  part,  the  vulgus  cleri,  should  instruct  the  peo- 
ple out  of  the  fountains  of  the  church  and  the  public  stock,  till  by 
so  long  exercise  and  discipline  in  the  schools  of  the  Prophets  they 
may  also  be  intrusted  to  minister  of  their  own  unto  the  people. 
This  I  am  sure  was  the  practice  of  the  Primitive  Church." 

"  I  am  convinced,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  that  I  ought  to  be  at 
Divine  Service  more  frequently  than  I  am ;  but  the  provocations 
given  by  ignorant  and  affected  preachers  too  often  disturb  the 
mental  calm  which  otherwise  would  succeed  to  prayer.  I  am  apt 
to  whisper  to  myself  on  such  occasions,  '  How  can  this  illiterate 
fellow  dream  of  fixing  attention,  after  we  have  been  listening  to 
the  sublimest  truths,  conveyed  in  the  most  chaste  and  exalted  lan- 
guage, through  a  liturgy  which  must  be  regarded  as  the  genuine 
offspring  of  piety  impregnated  by  wisdom  ! '  "  —  "  Take  notice, 
however,"  he  adds,  "though  I  make  this  confession  respecting 
myself,  I  do  not  mean  to  recommend  the  fastidiousness  that  some- 
times leads  me  to  exchange  congregational  for  solitary  worship." 

The  saintly  Herbert  says, 

"  Judge  not  the  Preacher,  for  he  is  thy  Judge; 
If  thou  mislike  him,  thou  conceiv'st  him  not. 
God  calleth  preaching  folly.     Do  not  grudge 
To  pick  out  treasures  from  an  earthen  pot. 
The  worst  speak  something  good.     If  all  want  sense, 
God  takes  a  text  and  preacheth  patience. 

He  that  gets  patience  and  the  blessing  which 
Preachers  conclude  with,  hath  not  lost  his  pains." 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  571 

This  sort  of  patience  was  all  that  Daniel  could  have  derived 
from  the  discourses  of  the  poor  curate  ;  and  it  was  a  lesson  of 
which  his  meek  and  benign  temper  stood  in  no  need.  Nature  had 
endowed  him  with  this  virtue,  and  this  Sunday's  discipline  exer- 
cised without  strengthening  it.  While  he  was,  in  the  phrase  of  the 
Religious  Public,  sitting  under  the  preacher,  he  obeyed  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  George  Herbert's  precept,  —  that  is,  he  obeyed  it  as 
he  did  other  laws  with  the  existence  of  which  he  was  unac- 
quainted, — 

"  Let  vain  or  busy  thoughts  have  there  no  part; 
Bring  not  thy  plough,  thy  plots,  thy  pleasure  thither." 

Pleasure  made  no  part  of  his  speculations  at  any  time.  Plots  he  had 
none.  For  the  Plough,  —  it  was  what  he  never  followed  in  fancy, 
patiently  as  he  plodded  after  the  furrow  in  his  own  vocation.  And 
then  for  worldly  thoughts,  they  were  not  likely  in  that  place  to 
enter  a  mind  which  never  at  any  time  entertained  them.  But  to 
that  sort  of  thought  (if  thought  it  maybe  called)  which  cometh  as 
it  listeth,  and  which,  when  the  mind  is  at  ease  and  the  body  in 
health,  is  the  forerunner  and  usher  of  sleep,  he  certainly  gave  way. 
The  curate's  voice  passed  over  his  ear  like  the  sound  of  the  brook 
with  which  it  blended,  and  it  conveyed  to  him  as  little  meaning 
and  less  feeling.  During  the  sermon,  therefore,  he  retired  into 
himself,  with  as  much  or  as  little  edification  as  a  Quaker  finds  at  a 
silent  meeting. 

It  happened  also  that  of  the  few  clergy  within  the  very  narrow 
circle  in  which  Daniel  moved,  some  were  in  no  good  repute  for 
their  conduct,  and  none  displayed  either  that  zeal  in  the  discharge 
of  their  pastoral  functions,  or  that  earnestness  and  ability  in  per- 
forming the  service  of  the  Church,  which  are  necessary  for  com- 
manding the  respect  and  securing  the  affections  of  the  parishion- 
ers. The  clerical  profession  had  never  presented  itself  to  him  in 
its  best,  which  is  really  its  true  light ;  and  for  that  cause  he  would 
never  have  thought  of  it  for  the  boy,  even  if  the  means  of  putting 
him  forward  in  this  path  had  been  easier  and  more  obvious  than 


572  ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

they  were.  And  for  the  dissenting  ministry,  Daniel  liked  not  the 
name  of  a  Nonconformist.  The  Puritans  had  left  behind  them  an 
ill  savour  in  his  part  of  the  country,  as  they  had  done  every  where 
else  ;  and  the  extravagances  of  the  primitive  Quakers,  which  during 
his  childhood  were  fresh  in  remembrance,  had  not  yet  been  for- 
gotten. 

It  was  well  remembered  in  those  parts  that  the  Vicar  of  Kirkby 
Lonsdale,  through  the  malignity  of  some  of  his  puritanical  parish- 
ioners, had  been  taken  out  of  his  bed  .  .  .  ,  and  hurried  away  to 
Lancaster  jail,  where  he  was  imprisoned  three  years  for  no  other 
offence  than  that  of  fidelity  to  his  Church  and  his  King.  And  that 
the  man  who  was  the  chief  instigator  of  this  persecution,  and  had 
enriched  himself  by  the  spoil  of  his  neighbour's  goods,  though  he 
flourished  for  awhile,  bought  a  field  and  built  a  fine  house,  came 
to  poverty  at  last,  and  died  in  prison,  having  for  some  time  received 
his  daily  food  there  from  the  table  of  one  of  this  very  Vicar's  sons. 
It  was  well  remembered  also  that,  in  a  parish  of  the  adjoining 
county-palatine,  the  puritanical  party  had  set  fire  in  the  night 
to  the  Rector's  barns,  stable,  and  parsonage ;  and  that  he  and  his 
wife  and  children  had  only  as  it  were  by  miracle  escaped  from  the 
flames. 

William  Dove  had  also  among  his  traditional  stores  some  stories 
of  a  stranger  kind  concerning  the  Quakers,  these  parts  of  the 
North  having  been  a  great  scene  of  their  vagaries  in  their  early 
days.  He  used  to  relate  how  one  of  them  went  into  the  church  at 
Brough,  during  the  reign  of  the  Puritans,  with  a  white  sheet  about 
his  body,  and  a  rope  about  his  neck,  to  prophesy  before  the  peo- 
ple and  their  Whig  Priest  (as  he  called  him)  that  the  surplice 
which  was  then  prohibited  should  again  come  into  use,  and  that 
the  Gallows  should  have  its  due  !  And  how  when  their  ringleader, 
George  Fox,  was  put  in  prison  at  Carlisle,  the  wife  of  Justice  Ben- 
son would  eat  no  meat  unless  she  partook  it  with  him  at  the  bars 
of  his  dungeon,  declaring  she  was  moved  to  do  this ;  wherefore  it 
was  supposed  he  had  bewitched  her.  And  not  without  reason  ; 
for  when  this  old  George  went,  as  he  often  did,  into  the  Church  to 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  573 

disturb  the  people,  and  they  thrust  him  out,  and  fell  upon  him 
and  beat  him,  sparing  neither  sticks  nor  stones  if  they  came  to 
hand,  he  was  presently,  for  all  that  they  had  done  to  him,  as  sound 
and  as  fresh  as  if  nothing  had  touched  him  ;  and  when  they  tried 
to  kill  him,  they  could  not  take  away  his  life  !  And  how  this  old 
George  rode  a  great  black  horse,  upon  which  he  was  seen  in  the 
course  of  the  same  hour  at  two  places,  three  score  miles  distant 
from  each  other  !  And  how  some  of  the  women  who  followed  this 
old  George  used  to  strip  off  all  their  clothes,  and  in  that  plight  go 
into  the  church  at  service  time,  on  the  Sunday,  to  bear  testimony 
against  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  the  world ;  "  and  to  be  sure  " 
said  William,  "  they  must  have  been  witched,  or  they  never  would 
have  done  this."  "  Lord  deliver  us  !  "  said  Dinah,  "  to  be  sure 
they  must !  "  —  "  To  be  sure  they  must,  Lord  bless  us  all !  "  said 
Haggy. 

INTERCHAPTER  V.  —  WHEREIN  THE  AUTHOR  MAKES  KNOWN  HIS 
GOOD  INTENTIONS  TO  ALL  READERS,  AND  OFFERS  GOOD  ADVICE 
TO  SOME  OF  THEM. 

Reader,  my  compliments  to  you  ! 

This  is  a  form  of  courtesy  which  the  Turks  use  in  their  com- 
positions, and  being  so  courteous  a  form,  I  have  here  adopted  it. 
Why  not? 

Turks  though  they  are,  we  learnt  inoculation  from  them,  and 
the  use  of  coffee ;  and  hitherto  we  have  taught  them  nothing  but 
the  use  of  tobacco  in  return. 

Reader,  my  compliments  to  you  ! 

Why  is  it  that  we  hear  no  more  of  Gentle  Readers  ?  Is  it  that 
having  become  critical  in  this  age  of  Magazines  and  Reviews,  they 
have  ceased  to  be  gentle  ?  But  all  are  not  critical ; 

"The  baleful  dregs 

Of  these  late  ages,  —  that  Circean  draught 
Of  servitude  and  folly,  have  not  yet,  — 
Yet  have  not  so  dishonour'd,  so  deform'd 
The  native  judgment  of  the  human  soul."  —  AKENSIDE. 


574  ROBERT  SOU  THEY. 

In  thus  applying  these  lines  I  mean  the  servitude  to  which  any 
rational  man  degrades  his  intellect,  when  he  submits  to  receive  an 
opinion  from  the  dictation  of  another,  upon  a  point  whereon  he  is 
just  as  capable  of  judging  for  himself;  —  the  intellectual  servitude 
of  being  told  by  Mr.  A.,  B.,  or  C.  whether  he  is  to  like  a  book  or 
not,  —  or  why  he  is  to  like  it :  and  the  folly  of  supposing  that  the 
man  who  writes  anonymously,  is  on  that  very  account  entitled  to 
more  credit  for  judgment,  erudition,  and  integrity,  than  the  author 
who  comes  forward  in  his  own  person,  and  stakes  his  character 
upon  what  he  advances. 

All  Readers,  however,  —  thank  Heaven,  and  what  is  left  among 
us  of  that  best  and  rarest  of  all  senses  called  Common  Sense,  —  all 
Readers,  however,  are  not  critical.  There  are  still  some  who  are 
willing  to  be  pleased,  and  thankful  for  being  pleased  ;  and  who  do 
not  think  it  necessary  that  they  should  be  able  to  parse  their  pleas- 
ure, like  a  lesson,  and  give  a  rule  or  a  reason  why  they  are  pleased, 
or  why  they  ought  not  to  be  pleased.  There  are  still  readers  who 
have  never  read  an  Essay  upon  Taste ;  —  and  if  they  take  my  ad- 
vice, they  never  will ;  for  they  can  no  more  improve  their  taste  by 
so  doing,  than  they  could  improve  their  appetite  or  their  digestion 
by  studying  a  cookery-book.  I  have  something  to  say  to  all 
classes  of  Readers ;  and,  therefore,  having  thus  begun  to  speak  of 
one,  with  that  class  I  will  proceed.  It  is  to  the  youthful  part  of 
my  lectors  —  (why  not  lectors  as  well  as  auditors  ?)  it  is  virgini- 
bus  puerisque  that  I  now  address  myself.  Young  Readers,  you 
whose  hearts  are  open,  whose  understandings  are  not  yet  hardened, 
and  whose  feelings  are  neither  exhausted  nor  encrusted  by  the 
world,  take  from  me  a  better  rule  than  any  professors  of  criticism 
will  teach  you  ! 

Would  you  know  whether  the  tendency  of  a  book  is  good  or 
evil,  examine  in  what  state  of  mind  you  lay  it  down.  Has  it  in- 
duced you  to  suspect  that  what  you  have  been  accustomed  to 
think  unlawful  may  after  all  be  innocent,  and  that  that  may  be 
harmless  which  you  have  hitherto  been  taught  to  think  dangerous? 
Has  it  tended  to  make  you  dissatisfied  and  impatient  under  the 


SELECTIONS  FROM   THE  DOCTOR.  575 

control  of  others ;  and  disposed  you  to  relax  in  that  self-govern- 
ment, without  which  both  the  law  of  God  and  man  tell  us  there 
can  be  no  virtue  —  and  consequently  no  happiness  ?  Has  it  at- 
tempted to  abate  your  admiration  and  reverence  for  what  is  great 
and  good,  and  to  diminish  in  you  the  love  of  your  country  and 
your  fellow-citizens  ?  Has  it  addressed  itself  to  your  pride,  your 
vanity,  your  selfishness,  or  any  other  of  your  evil  propensities? 
Has  it  defiled  the  imagination  with  what  is  loathsome,  and  shocked 
the  heart  with  what  is  monstrous?  Has  it  disturbed  the  sense  of 
right  and  wrong  which  the  Creator  has  implanted  in  the  human 
soul  ?  If  so  —  if  you  are  conscious  of  all  or  any  of  these  effects, 
—  or  if,  having  escaped  from  all,  you  have  felt  that  such  were  the 
effects  it  was  intended  to  produce,  throw  the  book  in  the  fire, 
whatever  name  it  may  bear  in  the  title-page  !  Throw  it  in  the  fire, 
young  man,  though  it  should  have  been  the  gift  of  a  friend  !  — 
young  lady,  away  with  the  whole  set,  though  it  should  be  the 
prominent  feature  of  a  rosewood  bookcase  ! 


XXIX. 

WALTER   SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

(1775-1864.) 

DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN. 

[Written  about  1824. J 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON  AND  JOHN  HORNE  (TooKE).1 

Tooke.  Doctor  Johnson,  I  rejoice  in  the  opportunity,  late  as  it 
presents  itself,  of  congratulating  you  on  the  completion  of  your 
great  undertaking;  my  bookseller  sent  me  your  Dictionary  the 
day  it  came  from  the  press,  and  it  has  exercised  ever  since  a  good 
part  of  my  time  and  attention. 

Johnson.   Who  are  you,  sir? 

Tooke.    My  name  is  Home. 

Johnson^  What  is  my  Dictionary,  sir,  to  you? 

Tooke.   A  treasure. 

Johnson.  Keep  it  then  at  home  and  to  yourself,  sir;  as  you 
would  any  other  treasure,  and  talk  no  more  about  it  than  you 
would  about  that.  You  have  picked  up  some  knowledge,  sir ;  but 
out  of  dirty  places.  What  man  in  his  senses  would  fix  his  study 
on  the  hustings?  When  a  gentleman  takes  it  into  his  head  to 
conciliate  the  rabble,  I  deny  his  discretion  and  I  doubt  his  hon- 
esty. Sir,  what  can  you  have  to  say  to  me  ? 

Tooke.  Doctor,  my  studies  have  led  me  some  little  way  into 
etymology,  and  I  am  interested  in  whatever  contributes  to  the 
right  knowledge  of  our  language. 

1  "  J.  Home  assumed  the  name  of  Tooke  after  the  supposed  date  of  this 
Conversation." 
576 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  577 

Johnson.   Sir,  have  you  read  our  old  authors  ? 

Tooke.   Almost  all  of  them  that  are  printed  and  extant. 

Johnson,    Prodigious  !  do  you  speak  truth? 

Tooke.   To  the  best  of  my  belief. 

Johnson.  Sir,  how  could  you,  a  firebrand  tossed  about  by  the 
populace,  find  leisure  for  so  much  reading? 

Tooke.  The  number  of  English  books  printed  before  the  acces- 
sion of  James  the  First  is  smaller  than  you  appear  to  imagine  ; 
and  the  manuscripts,  I  believe,  are  not  numerous ;  certainly  in 
the  libraries  of  our  Universities  they  are  scanty.  I  wish  you  had 
traced  in  your  preface  all  the  changes  made  in  the  orthography 
these  last  three  centuries,  for  which  five  additional  pages  would 
have  been  sufficient.  The  first  attempt  to  purify  and  reform  the 
tongue  was  made  by  John  Lyly,  in  a  book  entitled  Euphues  and 
his  England?  and  a  most  fantastical  piece  of  fustian  it  is.  This 
author  has  often  been  confounded  with  William  Lily,  a  better 
grammarian,  and  better  known.  Benjamin  Jonson  did  somewhat, 
and  could  have  done  more.  Although  our  governors  have  taken 
no  pains  either  to  improve  our  language  or  to  extend  it,  none  in 
Europe  is  spoken  habitually  by  so  many.  The  French  boast  the 
universality  of  theirs  :  yet  the  Germans,  the  Spaniards,  and  the 
Italians  may  contend  with  them  on  this  ground  :  for  as  the  Dutch 
is  a  dialect  of  the  German,  so  is  the  Portuguese  of  the  Spanish,  and 
not  varying  in  more  original  words  than  the  Milanese  and  Nea- 
politan from  the  Tuscan.  The  lingua  franca,  which  pervades  the 
coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  Ionian,  and  the  ^Egean  seas,  is 
essentially  Italian.  The  languages  of  the  two  most  extensive  em- 
pires in  Europe  are  confined  to  the  fewest  people.  There  are  not 
thirteen  millions  who  speak  Turkish,  nor  fifteen  who  speak  Rus- 
sian, though  branches  of  the  Slavonic  are  scattered  far.  If  any 
respect  had  been  had  to  the  literary  glory  of  our  country,  whereon 
much  of  its  political  is  and  ever  will  be  dependent,  many  millions 
more  would  at  this  time  be  speaking  in  English ;  and  the  Irish, 

2  See  the  first  Selection  in  this  volume. 


578  WALTER   SAVAGE  LANDOR. 

the  Welsh,  and  the  Canadians,  like  the  Danes  and  Saxons,  would 
have  forgotten  they  were  conquered  people. 

We  should  be  anxious  both  to  improve  our  language  and  to 
extend  it.  England  ought  to  have  no  colony  in  which  it  will  not 
be  soon  the  only  one  spoken.  Nations  may  be  united  by  identity 
of  speech  more  easily  than  by  identity  of  laws  :  for  identity  of 
laws  only  shows  the  conquered  that  they  are  bound  to  another 
people,  while  identity  of  speech  shows  them  that  they  are  bound 
with  it.  There  is  no  firm  conjunction  but  this ;  none  that  does 
not  retain  on  it  the  scar  and  seam,  and  often  with  much  soreness. 

Johnson.  So  far,  I  believe,  I  may  agree  with  you,  and  remain  a 
good  subject. 

Tooke.  Let  us  now  descend  from  generalities  to  particulars. 
Our  spelling  has  undergone  as  many  changes  as  the  French,  and 
more. 

Johnson.  And  because  it  hath  undergone  many,  you  would 
make  it  undergo  more  !  There  is  a  fastidiousness  in  the  use  of 
language  that  indicates  an  atrophy  of  mind.  We  must  take  words 
as  the  world  presents  them  to  us,  without  looking  at  the  root.  If 
we  grubbed  under  this  and  laid  it  bare,  we  should  leave  no  room 
for  our  thoughts  to  lie  evenly,  and  every  expression  would  be  con- 
strained and  crampt.  We  should  scarcely  find  a  metaphor  in  the 
purest  author  that  is  not  false  or  imperfect,  nor  could  we  imagine 
one  ourselves  that  would  not  be  stiff  and  frigid.  Take  now  for 
instance  a  phrase  in  common  use.  You  are  rather  late.  Can 
anything  seem  plainer?  Yet  rather,  as  you  know,  meant  origi- 
nally earlier,  being  the  comparative  of  rathe;  the  "rathe  prim- 
rose" of  the  poet3  recalls  it.  We  cannot  say,  You  are  sooner  late : 
but  who  is  so  troublesome  and  silly  as  to  question  the  propriety  of 
saying,  You  are  rather  late?  We  likewise  say,  bad  orthography 
and  false  orthography:  how  can  there  be  false  or  bad  right- 
spelling? 

Tooke.  I  suspect  there  are  more  of  these  inadvertencies  in  our 
language  than  in  any  other. 

8  From  MILTON'S  Lycidas,  142. 


DIALOGUES    OF  LITERARY  MEN,  579 

Johnson.    Sir,  our  language  is  a  very  good  language. 

Tooke.   Were  it  not,  I  should  be  less  solicitous  to  make  it  better. 

Johnson.   You  make  it  better,  sir  ! 

Tooke.  By  reverencing  the  authority  of  the  learned,  by  expos- 
ing the  corruptions  of  the  ignorant,  and  by  reclaiming  what  never 
ought  to  have  been  obsolete. 

Johnson.   Sir,  the  task  is  hopeless :  little  can  be  done  now. 

Tooke.  And  because  little  can  be  done,  must  we  do  nothing? 
Because  with  all  our  efforts  we  are  imperfect,  may  not  we  try  to 
be  virtuous?  Many  of  the  anomalies  in  our  language  can  be 
avoided  or  corrected  :  if  many  shall  yet  remain,  something  at 
least  will  have  been  done  for  elegance  and  uniformity. 

Johnson.    I  hate  your  innovations. 

Tooke.  I  not  only  hate  them,  but  would  resist  and  reject  them, 
if  I  could.  It  is  only  such  writers  as  you  that  can  influence  the 
public  by  your  authority  and  example. 

Johnson.  Sir,  if  the  best  writer  in  England  dared  to  spell  three 
words  differently  from  his  contemporaries,  and  as  Milton  spent 
[spelt]  them,  he  would  look  about  in  vain  for  a  publisher. 

Tooke.  Yet  Milton  is  most  careful  and  exact  in  his  spelling,  and 
his  ear  is  as  correct  as  his  learning.  His  language  would  continue 
to  be  the  language  of  his  country,  had  it  not  been  for  the  Restora- 
tion. 

Johnson.  I  have  patience,  sir  !  I  have  patience,  sir  !  Pray  go 
on. 

Tooke.  I  will  take  advantage  of  so  much  affability ;  and  I  hope 
that  patience,  like  other  virtues,  may  improve  by  exercise. 

On  the  return  of  Charles  from  the  Continent,  some  of  his  fol- 
lowers may  really  have  lost  their  native  idiom,  or  at  least  may 
have  forgotten  the  graver  and  solider  parts  of  it ;  for  many  were 
taken  over  in  their  childhood.  On  their  return  to  England,  noth- 
ing gave  such  an  air  of  fashion  as  imperfection  in  English  :  it 
proved  high  breeding,  it  displayed  the  court  and  loyalty.  Home- 
bred English  ladies  soon  acquired  it  from  their  noble  and  brave 
gallants ;  and  it  became  the  language  of  the  Parliament,  of  the 


580  WALTER   SAVAGE  LAND  OR. 

Church,  and  of  the  Stage.     Between  the  last  two  places  was  pretty 
equally  distributed  all  the  facetiousness  left  among  us. 

Johnson.    Keep  clear  of  the  church,  sir,  and  stick  to  language. 

Tooke.   Punctually  will  I  obey  each  of  your  commands. 

Johnson.    Did  South  and  Cowley  and  Waller  fall  into  this  slough  ? 

Tooke.  They  could  not  keep  others  from  it.  I  peruse  their 
works  with  pleasure  :  but  South,  the  greatest  of  them,  is  negligent 
and  courtly  in  his  spelling,  and  sometimes,  although  not  often, 
more  gravely  incorrect. 

Johnson.  And  pray  now  what  language  do  you  like  ? 
Tooke.  The  best  in  all  countries  is  that  which  is  spoken  by  in- 
telligent women  of  too  high  rank  for  petty  affectation,  and  too 
much  request  in  society  for  deep  study.  Cicero  praises  more  than 
one  such  among  the  Romans  ;  the  number  was  greater  among  the 
Greeks.  We  have  no  writer  in  our  language  so  pure  as  Madame 
de  Sevigne.  Indeed  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  French  far 
excejl  us  in  purity  of  style.  When  have  we  seen,  or  when  can  we 
expect,  such  a  writer  as  Le  Sage  ?  In  our  days  there  is  scarcely 
an  instance  of  a  learned  or  unlearned  man  who  has  written  grace- 
fully, excepting  your  friend  Goldsmith  and  (if  your  modesty  will 
admit  my  approaches)  yourself.  In  your  Lives  of  the  Poets,  you 
have  laid  aside  the  sceptre  of  Jupiter  for  the  wand  of  Mercury,  and 
have  really  called  up  with  it  some  miserable  ghosts  from  the  dead. 

Johnson.   Sir,  I  desire  no  compliments. 

Tooke.  Before,  I  offered  not  my  compliment  but  my  tribute ; 
I  dreaded  a  repulse ;  but  I  little  expected  to  see,  as  I  do,  the 
finger  of  Aurora  on  your  face. 

Johnson.  If  the  warmth  of  the  room  is  enough  to  kindle  your 
poetry,  well  may  it  possess  a  slight  influence  on  my  cheek.  The 
learned  men,  I  presume,  are  superseded  by  your  public  orators. 

Tooke.  Our  parliamentary  speakers  of  most  eminence  are  super- 
ficial in  scholarship,  as  we  understand  the  word,  and  by  no  means 
dangerously  laden  with  any  species  of  knowledge.  Burke  is  the 
most  eloquent  and  philosophical  of  them ;  Fox  the  readiest  at 
reply,  the  stoutest  debater,  the  acutest  disputant. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  581 

Johnson.  Rebels  !  but  what  you  say  of  their  knowledge  is  the 
truth.  I  have  said  it  of  one  party,  and  I  know  it  of  the  other,  else 
I  would  trounce  you  for  your  asseveration. 

Tooke.  You  yourself  induced  me  to  make  the  greater  part  of 
my  remarks ;  more  important,  as  being  on  things  more  important, 
than  transitory  men  ;  such  is  language. 

Johnson.    How,  sir,  did  I? 

Tooke.  By  having  recommended  in  some  few  instances  a  cor- 
recter  mode  of  spelling.  Bentley  and  Hall  and  Dryden,  though 
sound  writers,  are  deficient  in  authority  with  me ;  when,  for  ex- 
ample, they  write  incompatible  for  incompe tible :  we  want  both 
words,  but  we  must  be  careful  not  to  confound  and  misapply 
them.  Dryden  and  Roscommon  formed  a  design  of  purifying 
and  fixing  the  language  :  neither  of  them  knew  its  origin  or  princi- 
ples, or  was  intimately  or  indeed  moderately  versed  in  our  earlier 
authors,  of  whom  Chaucer  was  probably  the  only  one  they  had 
perused.  It  is  pretended  that  they  abandoned  the  design  from 
the  unquietness  of  the  times  :  as  if  the  times  disturbed  them  in 
their  studies,  leaving  them  peace  enough  for  poetry,  but  not 
enough  for  philology. 

Johnson.  And  are  you,  sir,  more  acute,  more  learned,  or  more 
profound  ?  What !  because  at  one  time  our  English  books  were 
scanty,  you  would  oppose  the  scanty  to  the  many,  with  all  the 
rashness  and  inconsistency  of  a  republican. 

Tooke.  Bearing  all  your  reproofs  and  reproaches  with  equa- 
nimity and  submission,  I  converse  with  you  on  this  subject  be- 
cause you  have  given  up  much  time  to  it :  with  another  I  should 
decline  the  discussion.  I  am  hopeful  of  gaining  some  information 
and  of  suggesting  some  subject  for  inquiry.  Illiterate,  inconsider- 
ate, irreverent,  and  overweening  men  will  be  always  disregarded 
by  me.  Like  children  and  clowns,  if  they  see  a  throne  or  a  judg- 
ment-seat, they  must  forsooth  sit  down  in  it.  Such  people  set 
themselves  above  me,  and  enjoy  the  same  feelings  as  those  in  the 
one-shilling  gallery  who  look  down  on  Garrick.  He  is  only  on 
the  stage,  no  higher  than  the  footlights,  and  plays  only  for  others ; 


582  WALTER   SAVAGE  LAND  OR. 

whereas  they  have  placed  themselves  at  the  summit,  and  applaud 
and  condemn  to  please  their  fancies.  It  is  equitable  that  coarse 
impudence  should  be  met  with  calm  contempt,  and  that  Wisdom 
should  sit  down  and  lower  her  eyes,  when  Impudence  trips  over 
the  way  to  discountenance  her,  or  Ignorance  starts  up  to  teach 
her. 

Johnson.  Coxcombs  and  blockheads  always  have  been,  and 
always  will  be  innovators ;  some  in  dress,  some  in  polity,  some  in 
language. 

Tooke.  I  wonder  whether  they  invented  the  choice  appellations 
you  have  just  repeated. 

Johnson.    No,  sir  !     Indignant  wise  men  invented  them. 

Tooke.  Long  ago  then.  Indignant  wise  men  lived  in  the  time 
of  the  Centaurs ;  such  combinations  have  never  existed  since. 
Your  remark,  however,  on  the  introducers  of  new  words  into  our 
language,  is,  I  apprehend,  well-founded  :  but  you  spoke  generally 
and  absolutely,  and  in  this  (I  think)  incorrectly.  Julius  Caesar, 
whom  you  ought  to  love  and  reverence  for  giving  the  last  blow  to 
a  republic,  was  likewise  an  innovator  in  spelling ;  so  was  Virgil ; 
and  to  such  a  degree,  that,  Aulus  Gellius  tells  us,  he  spelled  the 
same  word  differently  in  different  places,  to  gratify  his  ear.  Mil- 
ton has  done  the  same. 

Johnson.  And  sometimes  injudiciously :  for  instance  in  writing 
Hee  emphatically,  He  less  so.  He  also  writes  subtile,  as  a  scholar 
should  do ;  and  suttle,  as  the  word  is  pronounced  by  the  most 
vulgar. 

Tooke.  Cicero,  not  contented  with  new  spellings,  created  new 
words.  Now  the  three  Romans  have  immemorially  been  con- 
sidered the  most  elegant  and  careful  writers  in  their  language  : 
and  we  confer  on  our  countryman  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
praises  due  to  him,  in  asserting  that  both  in  poetry  and  prose  his 
mastery  is  above  them  all. 

Milton  is  no  factitious  or  accrete 4  man ;  no  pleader,  no  rhetori- 
cian. Truth  in  him  is  the  parent  of  Energy,  and  Energy  the  sup- 

4  made  up. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  583 

porter  of  Truth.  If  we  rise  to  the  Greek  language,  the  most 
eloquent  man  on  record,  Pericles,  introduced  the  double  T  instead 
of  the  double  S  :  and  it  was  enamelled  on  that  golden  language  to 
adorn  the  eloquence  of  Aspasia,  and  to  shine  among  ,the  graces 
of  Alcibiades.  Socrates  bent  his  thoughtful  head  over  it,  and 
it  was  observed  in  the  majestic  march  of  Plato.  At  the  same 
time  Thucydides  and  the  tragedians,  together  with  Aristophanes, 
contributed  to  form,  or  united  to  countenance,  the  Middle 
Attic.  One  would  expect  that  Elegance  and  Atticism  herself 
might  have  rested  and  been  contented.  No :  Xenophon,  Plato, 
-^schines,  Demosthenes,  were  promoters  of  the  New  Attic, 
altering  and  softening  many  words  in  the  spelling.  With  such 
men  before  me,  I  think  it  to  be  deeply  regretted  that  coxcombs 
and  blockheads  should  be  our  only  teachers,  where  we  have  much 
to  learn,  much  to  obliterate,  and  much  to  mend. 

Johnson.    Follow  your  betters,  sir  ! 

Tooke.  Such  is  my  intention  :  and  it  is  also  my  intention  that 
others  shall  follow  theirs. 

Johnson.  Obey  the  majority,  according  to  your  own  principles. 
You  reformers  will  let  nothing  'be  great,  nothing  be  stabile.  The 
orators  you  mention  were  deluders  of  the  populace. 

Tooke.  And  so  were  the  poets,  no  doubt :  but  let  us  hope  that 
the  philosophers  and  moralists  were  not,  nor  indeed  the  writers  of 
comedy.  Menander  was  among  the  reformers  :  so  was  Plautus  at 
Rome  :  the  most  highly  estimated  for  his  rich  Latinity  by  Cicero 
and  all  the  learned.  Our  own  language  had,  under  the  translators 
of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Liturgy,  reached  the  same  pitch  as  the 
Latin  had  in  the  time  of  Plautus ;  and  the  sanctitude  of  Milton's 
genius  gave  it  support,  until  the  worst  of  French  invasions  over- 
threw it.  Cowley,  Sprat,  Dryden,  imported  a  trimmer  and  suc- 
cincter  dress,  stripping  the  ampler  of  its  pearls  and  bullion. 
Arbuthnot  and  Steele  and  Swift  and  Addison  added  no  weight  or 
precision  to  the  language,  nor  were  they  choice  in  the  application 
of  words.  None  of  them  came  up  to  their  French  contemporaries 
in  purity  and  correctness ;  and  their  successors,  who  are  more 


584  WALTER   SAVAGE  LANDOR. 

grammatical,  are  weak  competitors  with  the  rival  nation  for  those 
compact  and  beautiful  possessions.  De  Foe  has  a  greater  variety 
of  powers  than  they,  and  he  far  outstrips  in  vigour  and  vivacity 
all  the  other  pedestrians  who  started  with  him.  He  spells  some 
words  commendably,  others  not.  Of  the  former  are  onely,  admitt, 
referr,  supplie,  re/ie,  searcht,  wisht ;  of  the  latter  perticulars, 
penisall,  speciall,  vallues.  Hurd,  very  minute  and  fastidious,  in 
like  manner  writes  often  reprehensibly,  though  oftener  well.  Do 
you  tolerate  his  "  catched" 

Johnson.    Sir,  I  was  teached  better. 

Tooke.    He  also  writes  "under  these  circumstances." 

Johnson.  Circumstances  are  things  round  about ;  we  are  in  them, 
not  under  them. 

Tooke.  We  find  "those  who  had  rather  trust  to  the  equity" 
for  "  would  rather." 5  I  believe  he  is  the  last  writer  who  uses  the 
word  wit  for  understanding,  although  we  continue  to  say  "  he  is 
out  of  his  wits.  He  very  properly  says  encomiums,  to  avoid  a 
Grecism.  We  never  say  "  rhododendra,"  but  "  rhododendron." 
In  our  honest  old  English,  all's  well  that  ends  well :  and  encomi- 
ums, phenomenons,  memorandums,  sound  thoroughly  and  fully 
English.  Hurd  is  less  so  in  his  use  of  the  word  counterfeit,  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  take  in  an  unfavorable  sense.  "Alexander 
suffered  none  but  an  Apelles  and  a  Lysippus  to  counterfeit  the 
form  and  features  of  his  person."  The  sentence  is  moreover  lax. 
I  am  glad,  however,  to  find  that  he  writes  subtile  instead  of  subtle. 
He  has  the  merit  too  of  using  hath  instead  of  has,  in  many  places, 
but  is  so  negligent  as  to  omit  it  sometimes  before  a  word  begin- 
ning with  s,  or  ce  and  ci,  and  ex.  This  is  less  bad  than  before  th. 
Like  Middleton,  he  writes  chast. 

5  Landor  here  makes  an  erroneous  criticism.  See  Dr.  Fitzedward  Hall's 
article  in  American  Journal  of  Philology,  II.  308  ff.,  for  examples  from 
fifteenth  century  on.  In  footnote  to  p.  314,  Hall  says,  "  Had  rather,  however  it 
may  be  in  conversation,  has  gradually  been  falling  into  disfavour  with  the  best 
authors,  during  the  last  eighty  years.  Lord  Macaulay  uses  it  only  three  times." 
It  is  good  English,  and  should  not  be  allowed  to  disappear. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  585 

Johnson.  Improperly.  Nobody  writes  wast  for  waste.  In  all 
such  words  the  vowel  is  pronounced  long,  which  his  spelling  would 
contract.  Dr.  Hurd  writes  plainly,  and  yet  not  ignobly.  His 
criticisms  are  always  sensible,  never  acute  ;  his  language  clear,  but 
never  harmonious. 

Tooke.  We  cease  to  look  for  Eloquence ;  she  vanished  at  the 
grave  of  Milton. 

Johnson.  Enough  of  Milton.  Praise  the  French,  sir  !  A  repub- 
lican is  never  so  much  at  his  ease  as  among  slaves. 

Tooke.  We  must  lead  happy  lives  then.  But  you  were  pleased 
to  designate  us  as  enemies  to  greatness  and  stability.  What  is  it  I 
admire  in  Milton  but  the  greatness  of  his  soul  and  the  stability  of 
his  glory?  Transitory  is  everything  else  on  earth.  The  minutest 
of  worms  corrodes  the  throne ;  a  slimier  consumes  what  sat  upon 
it  yesterday.  I  know  not  the  intentions  and  designs  of  others.  I 
know  not  whether  I  myself  am  so  virtuous  that  I  should  be  called 
a  republican,  or  so  intelligent  that  I  should  be  called  a  reformer. 
In  regard  to  stability,  I  do  however  think  I  could  demonstrate  to 
you,  that  what  has  a  broad  basis  is  more  stabile  than  what  has  a 
narrow  one,  and  that  nothing  is  gained  to  solidity  by  top-heavi- 
ness. In  regard  to  greatness,  I  doubt  my  ability  to  convince  you. 
Much  in  this  is  comparative.  Compared  with  the  plain,  the 
mountains  are  indeed  high  :  compared  with  what  is  above  them  in 
the  universe  of  space,  they  are  atoms  and  invisibilities.  Such  too 
are  mortals.  I  do  not  say  the  creatures  of  the  cannon- foundry  and 
the  cutlery :  I  do  not  say  those  of  the  jeweller  and  toyman,  from 
whom  we  exclude  light  as  from  infants  in  a  fever,  and  to  whom 
we  speak  as  to  drunken  men  to  make  them  quiet ;  but  the  most 
intellectual  we  ever  have  conversed  with.  What  are  they  in  com- 
parison with  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Bacon  or  a  Newton  ?  You  how- 
ever seemed  to  refer  to  power  only.  I  have  not  meditated  on  this 
subject  so  much  as  you  have,  and  my  impression  from  it  is  weaker  : 
nevertheless  I  do  presume  to  be  as  hearty  and  as  firm  a  supporter 
of  it,  removing  (as  I  would  do)  the  incumbrances  from  about  it, 
and  giving  it  ventilation. 


586  WALTER  SAVAGE  LAND  OK. 

Johnson.  Ventilation  !  yes,  forsooth  !  from  the  bellows  of  Brontes 
and  Steropes  and  Pyracmon. 

Tooke.  Come,  Doctor,  let  us  throw  a  little  more  dust  on  our 
furnace,  which  blazes  fiercelier  than  our  work  requires.  The 
word  firy  comes  appositely  :  why  do  we  write  it  fiery,  when  wire 
gives  wiry  ?  The  word  rushed  into  my  mind  out  of  Shakespeare, 

"  And  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods."  6 

Truly  this  would  be  a  very  odd  species  of  delight.  But  Shake- 
speare never  wrote  such  nonsense  :  he  wrote  delighted  (whence 
our  blighted},  struck  by  lightning:  a  fit  preparation  for  such 
bathing.  Why  do  we  write  lieutenant,  when  we  write,  "  I  would 
as  lief?"  Would  there  be  any  impropriety  or  inconvenience  in 
writing  end^wr  and  demeanor  as  we  write  tenor,  omitting  the  u  ? 

Johnson.  Then  you  would  imitate  cards  of  invitation,  where  we 
find  favor  and  honor. 

Tooke.  We  find  ancestor  and  author  and  editor  and  inventor 
in  the  works  of  Doctor  Jonson,  who  certainly  bears  no  resemblance 
to  a  card  of  invitation.  Why  can  not  we  place  all  these  words  on 
the  same  bench?  Most  people  will  give  us  credit  for  knowing 
that  they  are  derived  from  the  Latin ;  but  the  wisest  will  think  us 
fools  for  ending  them  like  hour,  sour,  and  flour,  pronounced  so 
differently.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  piece  of  impudence  to  think  we 
can  correct  the  orthography  of  such  writers  as  Selden  and  Milton. 
They  wrote  not  only  honor,  favor,  labor,  but  likewise  brest,  lookt, 
and  unlookt-for,  kinde,  minde.  To  spell  these  differently  is  a  gross 
absurdity. 

Johnson.  By  removing  a  single  letter  from  the  holy  word 
Saviour,  you  would  shock  the  piety  of  millions. 

Tooke.  In  that  word  there  is  an  analogy  with  others,  although 
the  class  is  small :  paviour  and  behaviour,  for  instance. 

Johnson.    It  now  occurs  to  one  that  honor  was  spelt  without 

6  Measure  for  Measure,  III.  I,  121. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  587 

the  u  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  with  it  under  his  successor.  Per- 
haps armour  should  be  armure,  from  the  low  Latin  armatura. 

Tooke.  If  we  must  use  such  words  as  reverie,  why  not  oblige 
them  to  conform  with  their  predecessors,  travesty  and  gaiety,  which 
should  have  the  y  instead  of  the  /.  When  we,  following  Cowley, 
write  pindarique,  we  are  laughed  at ;  but  nobody  laughs  at  pictu- 
resque and  antique,  which  are  equally  reducible  to  order. 

Johnson.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  offend  the  Genius  of  our  lan- 
guage. We  can  not  spell  our  words  as  the  French  spell  theirs. 
No  other  people  in  the  world  could  reduce  to  nothing  so  stiff  and 
stubborn  a  letter  as  x,  which  they  do  in  eaux. 

Tooke.  We  never  censure  them  for  writing  careme,  which  they 
formerly  wrote  caresme,  more  anciently  quaresme,  and  other  words 
similarly :  yet  they  have  one  language  for  writing,  another  for 
speaking,  and  affect  a  semblance  of  grammatical  construction  by 
a  heap  of  intractable  letters.  While  three  suffice  with  us  (  a, 
m,  a),  they  use  eight  (aimaienf),  of  which  the  greater  part  not 
only  are  unprofitable,  but  would,  in  any  language  on  earth,  express 
a  sound,  or  sounds,  totally  different  from  what  they  stand  for :  rt 
s,  t,  end  words  whose  final  sound  is  our  a.  We  never  censure  the 
Italians  for  writing  ricetto,  as  they  pronounce  it,  without  a  /,  and 
benedetto  without  a  c :  we  never  shudder  at  the  danger  they  incur 
of  losing  the  traces  of  derivation.  The  most  beautiful  and  easy  of 
languages  assumes  no  appearance  of  strength  by  the  display  of 
harshness,  nor  would  owe  its  preservation  to  rust.  Let  us  always 
be  analogical  when  we  can  be  so  without  offence  to  pronunciation. 
There  are  some  few  words  in  which  we  are  retentive  of  the  Nor- 
man laws.  We  write  island  with  an  s,  as  if  we  feared  to  be 
thought  ignorant  of  its  derivation.7  If  we  must  be  reverential  to 
custom,  let  it  rather  be  in  the  presence  of  the  puisne  judge. 
There  are  only  the  words  puisne,  isle,  island,  demesne,  viscount, 
and  the  family  name  Grosvenor,  in  which  an  s  is  unsounded.  I 
would  omit  it  in  these.  The  French  have  set  us  an  example  here, 
rejecting  the  useless  letter.  They  also  write  dette,  which  we  write 

7  Its  derivation,  as  well  as  its  pronunciation,  would  require  the  omission  of  s. 


588  WALTER  SAVAGE  LAND  OK. 

"debt."  I  know  not  why  we  should  often  use  the  letter  b  where 
we  do.  We  have  no  need  of  it  in  crumb  and  coomb  ;  the  original 
words  being  without  it. 

Johnson.  King  Charles  I.  writes  dout.  In  the  same  sentence 
he  writes  where/or.  But  to  such  authority  such  men  as  you  re- 
fuse allegiance  even  in  language.  Your  coomb  is  sterile,  and  your 
crumb  is  dry ;  as  such  minutenesses  must  always  be. 

Tooke.  So  are  nuts ;  but  we  crack  and  eat  them.  They  are 
good  for  the  full  and  for  those  only. 

Johnson.  The  old  writers  had  strange  and  arbitrary  ways  of 
spelling,  which  makes  them  appear  more  barbarous  than  they 
really  are.  There  are  learned  men  who  would  be  grieved  to  see 
removed  from  words  the  traces  of  their  origin. 

Tooke.  There  are  learned  men  who  are  triflers  and  inconsider- 
ate. Learning,  by  its  own  force  alone,  will  never  remove  a  pre- 
judice or  establish  a  truth.  Of  what  importance  is  it  to  us  that  we 
have  derived  these  words  from  the  Latin  through  the  French? 
We  do  not  preserve  the  termination  of  either.  Formerly  if  many 
unnecessary  letters  were  employed,  some  were  omitted.  Ea  and 
oa  were  unusual.  In  various  instances  the  spelling  of  Chaucer  is 
more  easy  and  graceful  and  elegant  than  the  modern.  He  avoids 
the  diphthong  in  coat,  green,  keen,  sheaf,  goat ;  writing  cote,  grene, 
kene,  shefe,  gate.  Sackville,  remarkable  for  diligence  and  dainti- 
ness of  composition,  spells  "  delights  "  delites,  and  "  shriek  " 
shreek.  He  also  writes  bemone,  brest,  yeeld.  What  we  foolishly 
write  work  was  formerly  spelt  werke,  as  we  continue  to  pronounce 
it.  Formerly  there  was  such  a  word  as  shew ;  we  still  write  it, 
but  we  pronounce  it  show,  and  we  should  never  spell  it  otherwise. 
There  is  another  of  daily  occurrence  which  we  spell  amiss,  al- 
though we  pronounce  it  rightly.  Coxcomb  in  reality  is  cockscomb, 
and  Ben  Jonson  writes  it  so,  adding  an  e.  He  who  first  wrote  it 
with  an  x  certainly  did  not  know  how  to  spell  his  own  name.  In 
a  somewhat  like  manner  we  have  changed  our  pennies  into  pence 
and  our  acquaintants  into  acquaintance.  Now  what  have  these 
gained  by  such  exchange  ?  Latterly  we  have  run  into  more  un- 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  589 

accountable  follies ;  such  as  compel  for  compell,  and  I  have  seen 
inter  for  interr.  Nobody  ever  pronounces  the  last  syllables  of 
these  words  short,  as  the  spelling  would  indicate.  You  would  be 
induced  to  believe  such  writers  are  ignorant  that  their  inter  and 
our  enter  are  of  a  different  stock.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 
parliament  was  usually,  though  not  universally,  spelt  parlement  : 
how  much  more  properly  !  What  we  write  door  and  floor  the 
learned  and  judicious  Jonson  wrote  dore  and  flore.  I  find  in  his 
writings  cotes,  profest,  spred,  partrich,  grone,  herth,  theater,  for- 
raine,  diamant,  phesants,  mushromes,  banisht,  rapt,  rackt,  addrest, 
ake,  spred,  stomack,  plee,  strein  (song),  windore,  fild  (filled), 
moniment,  beleeve,  yeeld,  scepter,  sute  (from  sue),  mist  (missed), 
grone,  crackt,  throte,  yong,  harbor,  harth,  oke,  cruze,  crost,  markt, 
minde,  (which  it  is  just  as  absurd  to  write  mind,  as  it  would  be  to 
write  time  tini),  tattght,  banisht,  cherisht,  heapt,  thankt.  It  is 
wonderful  that  so  learned  a  man  should  be  ignorant  that  spitals 
are  hospitals.  He  writes  :  "  Spittles,  post-houses,  hospitals."  Had 
he  spelt  the  first  properly,  as  he  has  done  all  the  other  words,  he 
could  not  have  made  this  mistake.  Fairfax  writes  vew,  bow 
(bough),  milde,  winde,  oke,  spred,  talkt,  embrast.  Fleming,  in 
his  translation  of  the  Georgics,  He,  oke,  anent ;  (which  latter  word 
now  a  Scotticism,  is  used  by  Philemon  Holland)  ;  gate,  feeld, 
yeeld,  spindel.  Drayton,  and  most  of  our  earlier  writers,  instead 
of  thigh,  write  thie.  Milton  in  the  Allegro, 

Where  the  bee  with  honied  thie. 

I  perceive  that  you  yourself,  in  your  letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield, 
have  several  times  written  the  word  til;  and  I  am  astonished  that 
the  propriety  of  it  is  not  generally  acknowledged  after  so  weighty 
an  authority.  Sent,  for  scent,  is  to  be  found  in  old  writers,  follow- 
ing the  derivation.  There  are  several  words  now  obsolete  which 
are  more  elegant  and  harmonious  than  those  retained  instead. 
Gentleness  and  idleness  are  hardly  so  beautiful  as  Chaucer's  gen- 
tilesse  and  idlesse.  We  retain  the  word  lessen,  but  we  have  dropped 
greaten.  Formerly  good  authors  knew  its  value. 


590  WALTER   SAVAGE  LAND  OR. 

I  wish  I  were  as  sure  that 

Multa  renascentur  qutz  jam  cecidere, 

as  I  am  that 

cadentque 
Quiz  nunc  sunt  in  honore  vocabula? 

I  am  unacquainted  with  any  language  in  which,  during  the  pros- 
perity of  a  people,  the  changes  have  run  so  seldom  into  improve- 
ment, so  perpetually  into  impropriety.  Within  another  generation, 
ours  must  have  become  so  corrupt,  that  writers,  if  they  hope  for 
life,  will  find  it  necessary  to  mount  up  nearer  to  its  sources. 

Johnson.  And  what  will  they  do  when  they  get  there?  The 
leather  from  the  stiff  old  jerkin  will  look  queerly  in  its  patches  on 
the  frayed  satin. 

Tooke.  Good  writers  will  suppress  the  violence  of  contrast. 
They  will  rather  lay  aside  what  by  its  impurity  never  had  much 
weight,  than  what  has  lost  it  by  the  attrition  of  time ;  and  they 
will  be  sparing  of  such  expressions  as  are  better  for  curiosities  than 
for  utensils.  You  and  I  would  never  say  "by  that  means  "  instead 
of  these;  nor  " an  alms";  yet  Addison  does.  He  also  says  a 
"  dish  of  coffee,"  yet  coffee  never  was  offered  in  a  dish,  unless  it 
was  done  by  the  fox  to  the  crane  after  the  dinner  he  gave  her. 
We  hear  of  our  lyrical  poetry,  of  our  senate,  of  our  manes,  of  our 
ashes,  of  our  bards,  of  our  British  Muse.  Luckily  the  ancients 
could  never  run  into  these  fooleries  ;  but  their  judgment  was  ren- 
dered by  discipline  too  exact  for  the  admission  of  them.  Only 
one  valuable  word  has  been  received  into  our  language  since  my 
birth,  or  perhaps  since  yours.  I  have  lately  heard  appreciate  for 
estimate. 

Johnson.  I  am  an  antigallican  in  speech  as  in  sentiments. 
What  we  have  fairly  won  from  the  French  let  us  keep,  and  avoid 
their  new  words  like  their  new  fashions.  Words  taken  from  them 
should  be  amenable,  in  their  spelling,  to  English  laws  and  regula- 
tions. Appreciate  is  a  good  and  useful  one ;  it  signifies  more 

8  Many  words  will  revive  which  have  now  fallen  out  of  use,  and  will  fall 
•which  are  now  in  honor. —  HORACE,  Ars  Poetica,  70,  71. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  591 


than  estimate  or  value  ;  it  implies  to  "  value  /#.r//y."  All  words  are 
good  which  come  when  they  are  wanted  ;  all  which  come  when 
they  are  not  wanted,  should  be  dismissed. 

Tooke.  Let  us  return  from  new  words  to  the  old  spelling  of 
Benjamin  Jonson,  which  other  learned  men  followed  :  deprest, 
speke,  grete,  fede,  reson,  reper,  sheves,  relefe,  leve,  grene,  wether, 
erthe,  breth,  seke,  seson,  sege,  meke,  stepe,  rome,  appere,  dere,  throte, 
tothe,  betwene,  swete,  deth,  hele,  there,  nere,  frende,  frefise,  teche, 
conceve,  tonge,  bere,  speche,  stere.  Altogether  there  are  about  forty 
words,  out  of  which  the  unnecessary  diphthong  is  ejected.  He 
always  omits  the  s  in  island  and  isle  ;  he  writes  sovrane,  subtil, 
childe,  and  werke.  He  would  no  more  have  written  sceptre  than 
quivre. 

Johnson.  Milton  too  avoided  the  diphthong  :  he  wrote  drede 
and  redy.  Mandeville  wrote  dede,  and  grane  of  incense. 

Tooke.  You  tell  us  that  the  letter  c  never  ends  a  word  accord- 
ing to  English  orthography  ;  yet  it  did  formerly  both  in  words  of 
Saxon  origin  and  British,  as  Eric,  Rod-eric,  Caradoc,  Madoc. 
Wenlock,  the  name  of  a  town  in  Shropshire,  formerly  ended  in  c, 
and  Hume  always  writes  Warwic. 

Johnson.  Sir,  do  not  quote  infidels  to  me.  Would  you  write 
sic  and  quic  ? 

Tooke.    I  would  if  we  derived  them  from  the  Greek  or  Latin. 

Johnson.  Without  the  authority  of  Ben  Jonson,  on  whom  you 
so  relie? 

Tooke.  There  is  in  Jonson  strong  sense,  and  wit  too  strong  ;  it 
wants  airiness,  ease,  and  volatility.  I  do  not  admire  his  cast-iron 
ornaments,  retaining  but  little  (and  that  rugged  and  coarse-grained) 
of  the  ancient  models,  and  nothing  of  the  workmanship.  But  I 
admire  his  judgment  in  the  spelling  of  many  words,  and  I  wish  we 
could  return  to  it.  In  others  we  are  afraid  of  being  as  English  as 
we  might  be  and  as  we  ought  to  be.  Some  appear  to  have  been 
vulgarisms  which  are  no  longer  such.  By  vulgarism  I  mean  what 
is  unfounded  on  ratiocination  or  necessity  :  for  instance,  under- 
neath. 


592  WALTER   SAVAGE  LAND  OR. 

Johnson.    Our  best  writers  have  used  it. 

Tooke.  They  have  ;  and  wisely ;  for  it  has  risen  up  before  them 
in  sacred  places,  and  it  brings  with  it  serious  recollections.  It  was 
inscribed  on  the  peasant's  gravestone,  long  before  it  shone  amid 
heraldic  emblems  in  the  golden  line  of  Jonson,  ushering  in 

"  Pembroke's  sister,  Sydney's  mother."  9 

Beside,  it  is  significant  and  euphonious.  Either  half  conveys  the 
full  meaning  of  the  whole.  But  it  is  silly  to  argue  that  we  gain 
ground  by  shortening  on  all  occasions  the  syllables  of  a  sentence. 
Half  a  minute,  if  indeed  so  much  is  requisite,  is  well  spent  in  clear- 
ness, in  fulness,  and  pleasureableness  of  expression,  and  in  engag- 
ing the  ear  to  carry  a  message  to  the  understanding.  \Vhilst  is 
another  vulgarism  which  authors  have  adopted,  the  last  letter 
being  added  improperly.  While  is  "the  time  when";  whiles 
"  the  timej  when."  10 

Johnson.  I  am  inclined  to  pay  little  attention  to  such  fastidious- 
ness, nor  does  it  matter  a  straw  whether  we  use  the  double  e  in- 
stead of  etc  in  sweet,  and  the  other  words  you  recited  from  good 
authors.  But  I  now  am  reminded  that  near  is  nigher,  by  Sir 
Thomas  More  writing  "  never  the  nere"  However,  you  are  not 
to  suppose  that  I  undervalue  the  authority  of  Benjamin  Jonson.  I 
find  sometimes  his  poetry  unsatisfactory  and  troublesome  ;  but  his 
prose  is  much  better,  and  now  and  then  almost  harmonious  ;  which 
his  verses  never  are  for  half  a  dozen  lines  together. 

Tooke.  I  know  little  about  poetry ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  in 
his,  where  he  has  not  the  ague,  he  has  the  cramp.  Nearly  all 
his  thoughts  are  stolen.  The  prettiest  of  his  poems, 

"  Drink  to  me  only  with  thy  eyes," 

is  paraphrased  from  Scaliger's  version  of  Aristaenetus.  He  col- 
lected much  spoil  from  his  campaign  in  the  Low  Countries  of 

9  From  Jonson's  "  Epitaph  on  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,"  beginning  "  Un- 
derneath this  sable  hearse,"  —  but  Landor,  or  his  editor,  has  accidentally  mis- 
placed "  Pembroke's  "  and  "  Sydney's." 

10  Another  etymological  error.      It  is  an  old  genitive  case. 


DIALOGUES   OF  LITERARY  MEN.  593 

Literature.  However,  his  English  for  the  most  part  is  admirable, 
and  was  justly  looked  up  to  until  Milton  rose,  overshadowing  all 
England,  all  Italy,  and  all  Greece.  Since  that  great  man's  depart- 
ure we  have  had  nothing  (in  style  I  mean)  at  all  remarkable. 
Locke  and  Defoe  were  the  most  purely  English :  and  you  your- 
self, who  perhaps  may  not  admire  their  simplicity,  must  absolve 
them  from  the  charge  of  innovation.  I  perceive  that  you  prefer 
the  spelling  of  our  gentlemen  and  ladies  now  flourishing  to  that 
not  only  of  Middleton  but  of  Milton. 

Johnson.  Before  I  say  a  word  about  either,  I  shall  take  the  lib- 
erty, Sir,  to  reprehend  your  unreasonable  admiration  of  such  writ- 
ers as  Defoe  and  Locke.  What,  pray,  have  they  added  to  the 
dignity  or  the  affluence  of  our  language  ? 

Tooke.  I  would  gladly  see  our  language  enriched  ^.s  far  as  it 
can  be  without  depraving  it.  At  present  we  recur  to  the  Latin  and 
reject  the  Saxon.  This  is  strengthening  our  language  just  as  our 
empire  is  strengthened,  by  severing  from  it  the  most  flourishing  of 
its  provinces.  In  another  age  we  may  cut  down  the  branches  of 
the  Latin  to  admit  the  Saxon  to  shoot  up  again ;  for  opposites 
come  perpetually  round.  But  it  would  be  folly  to  throw  away  a 
current  and  commodious  piece  of  money  because  of  the  stamp 
upon  it,  or  to  refuse  an  accession  to  an  estate  because  our  grand- 
father could  do  without  it.  A  book  composed  of  merely  Saxon 
words  (if  indeed  such  a  thing  could  be)  would  only  prove  the 
perverseness  of  the  author.  It  would  be  inelegant,  inharmonious, 
and  deficient  in  the  power  of  conveying  thoughts  and  images,  of 
which  indeed  such  a  writer  could  have  but  extremely  few  at  start- 
ing. Let  the  Saxon  however  be  always  the  groundwork.11 

11  Lack  of  space  will  not  permit  further  selection,  but  the  sticklers  for  our 
present  irrational  spelling  would  do  well  to  read  these  dialogues  of  Johnson  and 
Tooke,  as  well  as  those  of  Hare  and  Landor. 


XXX. 

LEIGH    HUNT. 

(1784-1859.) 

AN  ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "  WHAT  IS  POETRY?  " 
INCLUDING  REMARKS  ON  VERSIFICATION.* 

[Written  in  1844.] 

* 

POETRY,  strictly  and  artistically  so  called,  that  is  to  say,  con- 
sidered not  merely  as  poetic  feeling,  which  is  more  or  less  shared 
by  all  the  world,  but  as  the  operation  of  that  feeling,  such  as  we 
see  it  in  the  poet's  book,  is  the  utterance  of  a  passion  for  truth, 
beauty,  and  power,  embodying  and  illustrating  its  conceptions  by 
imagination  and  fancy,  and  modulating  its  language  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  variety  in  uniformity.  Its  means  are  whatever  the  uni- 
verse contains ;  and  its  ends,  pleasure  and  exaltation.  Poetry 
stands  between  nature  and  convention,  keeping  alive  among  us 
the  enjoyment  of  the  external  and  the  spiritual  world :  it  has  con- 
stituted the  most  enduring  fame  of  nations ;  and,  next  to  Love 
and  Beauty,  which  are  its  parents,  is  the  greatest  proof  to  man  of 
the  pleasure  to  be  found  in  all  things,  and  of  the  probable  riches 
of  infinitude.  Poetry  is  a  passion,  because  it  seeks  the  deepest 
impressions ;  and  because  it  must  undergo,  in  order  to  convey 
them. 

It  is  a  passion  for  truth,  because  without  truth  the  impression 
would  be  false  or  defective. 

It  is  a  passion  for  beauty,  because  its  office  is  to  exalt  and  refine 

1  The   introduction  to  LEIGH  HUNT'S  selections  from  the  English  Poets, 
entitled  Imagination  and  Fancy. 
594 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POETRY?"     595 

by  means  of  pleasure,  and  because  beauty  is  nothing  but  the  love- 
liest form  of  pleasure. 

It  is  a  passion  for  power,  because  power  is  impression  trium- 
phant, whether  over  the  poet,  as  desired  by  himself,  or  over  the 
reader,  as  affected  by  the  poet. 

It  embodies  and  illustrates  its  impressions  by  imagination,  or 
images  of  the  objects  of  which  it  treats,  and  other  images  brought 
in  to  throw  light  on  those  objects,  in  order  that  it  may  enjoy  and 
impart  the  feeling  of  their  truth  in  its  utmost  conviction  and 
affluence. 

It  illustrates  them  by  fancy,  which  is  a  lighter  play  of  imagina- 
tion, or  the  feeling  of  analogy  coming  short  of  seriousness,  in 
order  that  it  may  laugh  with  what  it  loves,  and  show  how  it  can 
decorate  it  with  fairy  ornament. 

It  modulates  what  it  utters,  because  in  running  the  whole  round 
of  beauty  it  must  needs  include  beauty  of  sound ;  and  because,  in 
the  height  of  its  enjoyment,  it  must  show  the  perfections  of  its  tri- 
umph, and  make  difficulty  itself  become  part  of  its  facility  and  joy. 

And  lastly,  Poetry  shapes  this  modulation  into  uniformity  for  its 
outline,  and  variety  for  its  parts,  because  it  thus  realizes  the  last 
idea  of  beauty  itself,  which  includes  the  charm  of  diversity  within 
the  flowing  round  of  habit  and  ease. 

Poetry  is  imaginative  passion.  The  quickest  and  subtlest  test 
of  the  possession  of  its  essence  is  in  expression ;  the  variety  of 
things  to  be  expressed  shows  the  amount  of  its  resources ;  and 
the  continuity  of  the  song  completes  the  evidence  of  its  strength 
and  greatness.  He  who  has  thought,  feeling,  expression,  imagina- 
tion, action,  character  and  continuity,  all  in  the  largest  amount  and 
highest  degree,  is  the  greatest  poet. 

Poetry  includes  whatsoever  of  painting  can  be  made  visible  to 
the  mind's  eye,  and  whatsoever  of  music  can  be  conveyed  by 
sound  and  proportion  without  singing  or  instrumentation.  But  it 
far  surpasses  those  divine  arts,  in  suggestiveness,  range,  and  in- 
tellectual wealth  ;  —  the  first,  in  expression  of  thought,  combina- 
tion of  images,  and  the  triumph  over  space  and  time ;  the  second, 


5%  LEIGH  HUNT. 

in  all  that  can  be  done  by  speech,  apart  from  the  tones  and  mod- 
ulations of  pure  sound.  Painting  and  music,  however,  include  all 
those  portions  of  the  gift  of  poetry  that  can  be  expressed  and 
heightened  by  the  visible  and  melodious.  Painting,  in  a  certain 
apparent  manner,  is  things  themselves  j  music,  in  a  certain  audible 
manner,  is  their  very  emotion  and  grace.  Music  and  painting  are 
proud  to  be  related  to  poetry,  and  poetry  loves  and  is  proud  of 
them. 

Poetry  begins  where  matter  of  fact  or  of  science  ceases  to 
be  merely  such,  and  to  exhibit  a  further  truth ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  connection  it  has  with  the  world  of  emotion,  and  its  power 
to  produce  imaginative  pleasure.  Inquiring  of  a  gardener,  for 
instance,  what  flower  it  is  we  see  yonder,  he  answers,  "  A  lily." 
This  is  matter  of  fact.  The  botanist  pronounces  it  to  be  of  the 
order  of  "  Hexandria  monogynia."  This  is  matter  of  science.  It 
is  the  "  lady  "  of  the  garden,  says  Spenser ;  and  here  we  begin  to 
have  a  poetical  sense  of  its  fairness  and  grace.  It  is 

The  plant  and  flower  of  light, 

says  Ben  Jonson ;  and  poetry  then  shows  us  the  beauty  of  the 
flower  in  all  its  mystery  and  splendour. 

If  it  be  asked,  how  we  know  perceptions  like  these  to  be  true, 
the  answer  is,  by  the  fact  of  their  existence,  —  by  the  consent  and 
delight  of  poetic  readers.  And  as  feeling  is  the  earliest  teacher, 
and  perception  the  only  final  proof  of  things  the  most  demon- 
strable by  science,  so  the  remotest  imaginations  of  the  poets  may 
often  be  found  to  have  the  closest  connection  with  matter  of  fact ; 
perhaps  might  always  be  so,  if  the  subtlety  of  our  perceptions 
were  a  match  for  the  causes  of  them.  Consider  this  image  of  Ben 
Jonson's  —  of  a  lily  being  the  flower  of  light.  Light,  undecom- 
posed,  is  white ;  and  as  the  lily  is  white,  and  light  is  white,  and 
whiteness  itself  is  nothing  but  light,  the  two  things,  so  far,  are  not 
merely  similar,  but  identical.  A  poet  might  add,  by  an  analogy 
drawn  from  the  connexion  of  light  and  colour,  that  there  is  a 
"  golden  dawn  "  issuing  out  of  the  white  lily,  in  the  rich  yellow  of 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POETRY?"     597 

the  stamens.  I  have  no  desire  to  push  this  similarity  farther  than 
it  may  be  worth.  Enough  has  been  stated  to  show  that,  in  poet- 
ical as  in  other  analogies,  "  the  same  feet  of  nature,"  as  Bacon 
says,  may  be  seen  "  treading  in  different  paths  " ;  and  the  most 
scornful,  that  is  to  say,  dullest  disciple  of  fact,  should  be  cautious 
how  he  betrays  the  shallowness  of  his  philosophy  by  discerning 
no  poetry  in  its  depths. 

But  the  poet  is  far  from  dealing  only  with  these  subtle  and 
analogical  truths.  Truth  of  every  kind  belongs  to  him,  provided 
it  can  bud  into  any  kind  of  beauty,  or  is  capable  of  being  illus- 
trated and  impressed  by  the  poetic  faculty.  Nay,  the  simplest 
truth  is  often  so  beautiful  and  impressive  of  itself,  that  one  of  the 
greatest  proofs  of  his  genius  consists  in  his  leaving  it  to  stand 
alone,  illustrated  by  nothing  but  the  light  of  its  own  tears  or  smiles, 
its  own  wonder,  might,  or  playfulness.  Hence  the  complete 
effect  of  many  a  simple  passage  in  our  old  English  ballads  and 
romances,  and  of  the  passionate  sincerity  in  general  of  the  greatest 
early  poets,  such  as  Homer  and  Chaucer,  who  flourished  before 
the  existence  of  a  "  literary  world,"  and  were  not  perplexed  by 
a  heap  of  notions  and  opinions,  or  by  doubts  how  emotion  ought 
to  be  expressed.  The  greatest  of  their  successors  never  write 
equally  to  the  purpose,  except  when  they  can  dismiss  everything 
from  their  minds  but  the  like  simple  truth.  In  the  beautiful 
poem  of  Sir  Eger,  Sir  Graham,  and  Sir  Gray-Steel  (see  it  in 
Ellis's  Specimens,  or  Laing's  Early  Metrical  Tales),  a  knight 
thinks  himself  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  his  mistress  :  — 

Sir  Eger  said,  "  If  it  be  so, 
Then  wot  I  well  I  must  forego 
Love-liking,  and  manhood,  all  clean?" 
The  water  rushed  out  of  his  een  ! 

Sir  Gray-Steel  is  killed  :  — 

Gray-Steel  into  his  death  thus  thraws  (throes?) 

He  waiters  (welters,  —  throws  himself  about)  and  the  grass  up  draws  ; 


598  LEIGH  HUNT. 

A  little  while  then  lay  he  still 
{Friends  that  him  saw,  liked  full  ill} 
And  bled  into  his  armour  bright. 

The  abode  of  Chaucer's  Reve,  or  Steward,  in  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  is  painted  in  two  lines  which  nobody  ever  wished  longer  :  — 

His  wonning  (dwelling)  was  full  fair  upon  an  heath, 
With  greeny,  trees  yshadowed  was  his  place. 

Every  one  knows  the  words  of  Lear,  "  most  matter-of-fact,  most 

melancholy  "  : 

Pray  do  not  mock  me : 
I  am  a  very  foolish  fond  old  man, 
Fourscore  and  upward : 

Not  an  hour  more,  nor  less;   and,  to  deal  plainly, 
I  fear,  I  am  not  in  my  perfect  mind. 

It  is  thus  by  exquisite  pertinence,  melody,  and  the  implied  power 
of  writing  with  exuberance,  if  need  be,  that  beauty  and  truth  be- 
come identical  in  poetry,  and  that  pleasure,  or  at  the  very  worst,  a 
balm  in  our  tears,  is  drawn  out  of  pain. 

It  is  a  great  and  rare  thing,  and  shows  a  lovely  imagination, 
when  the  poet  can  write  a  commentary,  as  it  were,  of  his  own,  on 
such  sufficing  passages  of  nature,  and  be  thanked  for  the  addition. 
There  is  an  instance  of  this  kind  in  Warner,  an  old  Elizabethan 
poet,  than  which  I  know  nothing  sweeter  in  the  world.  He  is 
speaking  of  Fair  Rosamond,  and  of  a  blow  given  her  by  Queen 

Eleanor : 

With  that  she  dash'd  her  on  the  lips, 

So  dyed  double  red ': 
Hard  was  the  heart  that  gave  the  blow, 

Soft  were  those  lips  that  bled. 

There  are  different  kinds  and  degrees  of  imagination,  some  of 
them  necessary  to  the  formation  of  every  true  poet,  and  all  of 
them  possessed  by  the  greatest.  Perhaps  they  may  be  enumer- 
ated as  follows  :  —  First,  that  which  presents  to  the  mind  any  ob- 
ject or  circumstance  in  every-day  life ;  as  when  we  imagine  a  man 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  /S  POETXY?"     599 

holding  a  sword,  or  looking  out  of  a  window ;  —  Second,  that 
which  presents  real,  but  not  every-day  circumstances ;  as  King 
Alfred  tending  the  loaves,  or  Sir  Philip  Sidney  giving  up  the  water 
to  the  dying  soldier ;  —  Third,  that  which  combines  character  and 
events  directly  imitated  from  real  life  with  imitative  realities  of  its 
own  invention  ;  as  the  probable  parts  of  the  histories  of  Priam  and 
Macbeth,  or  what  may  be  called  natural  fiction  as  distinguished 
from  supernatural ;  —  Fourth,  that  which  conjures  up  things  and 
events  not  to  be  found  in  nature ;  as  Homer's  gods,  and  Shak- 
speare's  witches,  enchanted  horses  and  spears,  Ariosto's  hippogriff, 
&c. ;  —  Fifth,  that  which,  in  order  to  illustrate  or  aggravate  one 
image,  introduces  another :  sometimes  in  simile,  as  when  Homer 
compares  Apollo  descending  in  his  wrath  at  noon-day  to  the  com- 
ing of  night-time  ;  sometimes  in  metaphor,  or  simile  comprised  in 
a  word,  as  in  Milton's  "  motes  that  people  the  sunbeams  "  ;  some- 
times in  concentrating  into  a  word  the  main  history  of  any  person 
or  thing,  past  or  even  future,  as  in  the  "  starry  Galileo  "  of  Byron, 
and  that  ghastly  foregone  conclusion  of  the  epithet  "  murdered  " 
applied  to  the  yet  living  victim  in  Keats's  story  from  Boccaccio,  — 

So  the  two  brothers  and  their  murder 'd  man, 
Rode  towards  fair  Florence; 

sometimes  in  the  attribution  of  a  certain  representative  quality 
which  makes  one  circumstance  stand  for  others;  as  in  Milton's 
grey-fly  winding  its  "sultry  horn,"  which  epithet  contains  the  heat 
of  a  summer's  day ;  —  Sixth,  that  which  reverses  this  process,  and 
makes  a  variety  of  circumstances  take  colour  from  one,  like  nature 
seen  with  jaundiced  or  glad  eyes,  or  under  the  influence  of  storm 
or  sunshine  ;  as  when  in  Lycidas,  or  the  Greek  pastoral  poets,  the 
flowers  and  the  flocks  are  made  to  sympathize  with  a  man's  death ; 
or,  in  the  Italian  poet,  the  river  flowing  by  the  sleeping  Angelica 
seems  talking  of  love  — 

Parea  che  1'erba  le  fiorisse  intorno, 
E  <f  amor  ragionasse  quella  riva  ! 2 

Orlando  fnnamorato,  canto  iii. 

2  //  seemed  that  the  grass  was  blooming  around  her,  and  that  bank  was  talk- 
ing of  love. 


600  LEIGH  HUNT. 

or  in  the  voluptuous  homage  paid  to  the  sleeping  Imogen  by  the 
very  light  in  the  chamber  and  the  reaction  of  her  own  beauty  upon 
itself;  or  in  the  "witch  element"  of  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth  and 
the  May-day  night  of  Faust;  —  Seventh,  and  last,  that  which  by 
a  single  expression,  apparently  of  the  vaguest  kind,  not  only  meets 
but  surpasses  in  its  effect  the  extremest  force  of  the  most  particu- 
lar description  ;  as  in  that  exquisite  passage  of  Coleridge's  Christa- 
bel,  where  the  unsuspecting  object  of  the  witch's  malignity  is 
bidden  to  go  to  bed  :  — 

Quoth  Christabel,  So  let  it  be ! 
And  as  the  lady  bade,  did  she. 
Her  gentle  limbs  did  she  undress, 
And  lay  down  in  her  loveliness :  — 

a  perfect  verse  surely,  both  for  feeling  and  music.  The  very 
smoothness  and  gentleness  of  the  limbs  in  the  series  of  the 
letter  /'s. 

I  am  aware  of  nothing  of  the  kind  surpassing  that  most  lovely 
inclusion  of  physical  beauty  in  moral,  neither  can  I  call  to  mind 
any  instances  of  the  imagination  that  turns  accompaniments  into 
accessories,  superior  to  those  I  have  alluded  to.  Of  the  class  of 
comparison,  one  of  the  most  touching  (many  a  tear  must  it  have 
drawn  from  parents  and  lovers)  is  in  a  stanza  which  has  been 
copied  into  the  Friar  of  Orders  Grey,  out  of  Beaumont  and 

Fletcher :  — 

Weep  no  more,  lady,  Weep  no  more, 

Thy  sorrow  is  in  vain; 
For  -violets  pluck 'd  the  sweetest  showers 
Will  ne'er  make  grow  again. 

And  Shakspeare  and  Milton  abound  in  the  very  grandest ;  such  as 
Antony's  likening  his  changing  fortunes  to  the  cloud-rack ;  Lear's 
appeal  to  the  old  age  of  the  heavens ;  Satan's  appearance  in  the 
horizon,  like  a  fleet  "  hanging  in  the  clouds  "  ;  and  the  comparisons 
of  him  with  the  comet  and  the  eclipse.  Nor  unworthy  of  their 
glorious  company,  for  its  extraordinary  combination  of  delicacy 
and  vastness,  is  that  enchanting  one  of  Shelley's  in  the  Adonais :  — 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POETRY?"    601 

Life,  like  a  dome  of  many- coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity. 

I  multiply  these  particulars  in  order  to  impress  upon  the  reader's 
mind  the  great  importance  of  imagination  in  all  its  phases,  as  a 
constituent  part  of  the  highest  poetic  faculty. 

The  happiest  instance  I  remember  of  imaginative  metaphor  is 
Shakspeare's  moonlight  "  sleeping  "  on  a  bank ;  but  half  his  poetry 
may  be  said  to  be  made  up  of  it,  metaphor  indeed  being  the 
common  coin  of  discourse.  Of  imaginary  creatures  none,  out  of 
the  pale  of  mythology  and  the  East,  are  equal,  perhaps,  in  point 
of  invention,  to  Shakspeare's  Ariel  and  Caliban ;  though  poetry 
may  grudge  to  prose  the  discovery  of  a  Fringed  Woman,  espe- 
cially such  as  she  has  been  described  by  her  inventor  in  the  story 
of  Peter  IVilkins  ;z  and  in  point  of  treatment,  the  Mammon  and 
Jealousy  of  Spenser,  some  of  the  monsters  in  Dante,  particularly 
his  Nimrod,  his  interchangements  of  creatures  into  one  another, 
and  (if  I  am  not  presumptuous  in  anticipating  what  I  think  will 
be  the  verdict  of  posterity)  the  Witch  in  Coleridge's  Christabel, 
may  rank  even  with  the  creations  of  Shakspeare.  It  may  be 
doubted,  indeed,  whether  Shakspeare  had  bile  and  nightmare 
enough  in  him  to  have  thought  of  such  detestable  horrors  as  those 
of  the  interchanging  adversaries  (now  serpent,  now  man),  or  even 
of  the  huge,  half-blockish  enormity  of  Nimrod,  —  in  Scripture,  the 
"  mighty  hunter  "  and  builder  of  the  tower  of  Babel,  —  in  Dante, 
a  tower  of  a  man  in  his  own  person,  standing  with  some  of  his 
brother  giants  up  to  the  middle  in  a  pit  in  hell,  blowing  a  horn  to 
which  a  thunder-clap  is  a  whisper,  and  hallooing  after  Dante  and 
his  guide  in  the  jargon  of  a  lost  tongue  !  The  transformations 
are  too  odious  to  quote ;  but  of  the  towering  giant  we  cannot 
refuse  ourselves  the  "  fearful  joy  "  of  a  specimen.  It  was  twilight, 
Dante  tells  us,  and  he  and  his  guide  Virgil  were  silently  pacing 
through  one  of  the  dreariest  regions  of  hell,  when  the  sound  of  a 
tremendous  horn  made  him  turn  all  his  attention  to  the  spot  from 

8  Written  by  Robert  Pultock  about  1 750.  See  Wheeler's  Vocabulary  in 
Appendix  to  Webster's  Dictionary. 


602  LEIGH  HUNT. 

which  it  came.  He  there  discovered,  through  the  dusk,  what 
seemed  to  be  the  towers  of  a  city.  Those  are  no  towers,  said  his 
guide ;  they  are  giants  standing  up  to  the  middle  in  one  of  these 
circular  pits  : 4 

I  looked  again;  and  as  the  eye  makes  out, 

By  little  and  little,  what  the  mist  conceal'd, 

In  which,  till  clearing  up,  the  sky  was  steep'd; 

So,  looming  through  the  gross  and  darksome  air, 

As  we  drew  nigh,  those  mighty  bulks  grew  plain, 

And  error  quitted  me,  and  terror  join'd  : 

For  in  like  manner  as  all  round  its  height 

Montereggione  crowns  itself  with  towers, 

So  tower'd  above  the  circuit  of  that  pit, 

Though  but  half  out  of  it,  and  half  within, 

The  horrible  giants  that  fought  Jove,  and  still 

Are  threaten'd  when  he  thunders.     As  we  near'd 

The  foremost,  I  discern'd  his  mighty  face, 

His  shoulders,  breast,  and  more  than  half  his  trunk, 

With  both  the  arms  down  hanging  by  the  sides. 

His  face  appear'd  to  me,  in  length  and  breadth, 

Huge  as  St.  Peter's  pinnacle  at  Rome, 

And  of  a  like  proportion  all  his  bones. 

He  open'd,  as  we  went,  his  dreadful  mouth, 

Fit  for  no  sweeter  psalmody;   and  shouted 

After  us,  in  the  words  of  some  strange  tongue, 

"  Rafel  ma-ee  amech  zabee  almee  !  —  " 

"  Dull  wretch  !  "  my  leader  cried,  "  keep  to  thine  horn, 

And  so  vent  better  whatsoever  rage 

Or  other  passion  stuff  thee.     Feel  thy  throat 

And  find  the  chain  upon  thee,  thou  confusion ! 

Lo !  what  a  hoop  is  clench'd  about  thy  gorge." 

Then  turning  to  myself  he  said,  "  His  howl 

Is  its  own  mockery.     This  is  Nimrod,  he 

Through  whose  ill  thought  it  was  that  human  kind 

Were  tongue-confounded.     Pass  him,  and  say  nought : 

For  as  he  speaketh  language  known  of  none, 

So  none  can  speak  save  jargon  to  himself." 

*  HUNT  quotes  here  the  Inferno,  canto  xxxi.  verse  34  et  seq.,  and  translates  it. 


ANSWER  TO   THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POE THY?"    603 

Assuredly  it  could  not  have  been  easy  to  find  a  fiction  so  un- 
couthly  terrible  as  this  in  the  hypochondria  of  Hamlet.  Even  his 
father  had  evidently  seen  no  such  ghost  in  the  other  world.  All 
his  phantoms  were  in  the  world  he  had  left.  Timon,  Lear,  Richard, 
Brutus,  Prospero,  Macbeth  himself,  none  of  Shakspeare's  men 
had,  in  fact,  any  thought  but  of  the  earth  they  lived  on,  whatever 
supernatural  fancy  crossed  them.  The  thing  fancied  was  still  a 
thing  of  this  world,  "  in  its  habit  as  it  lived,"  or  no  remoter  ac- 
quaintance than  a  witch  or  a  fairy.  Its  lowest  depths  (unless 
Dante  suggested  them)  were  the  cellars  under  the  stage.  Caliban 
himself  is  a  cross-breed  between  a  witch  and  a  clown.  No  of- 
fence to  Shakspeare  :  who  was  not  bound  to  be  the  greatest  of 
healthy  poets,  and  to  have  every  morbid  inspiration  besides. 
What  he  might  have  done,  had  he  set  his  wits  to  compete  with 
Dante,  I  know  not :  all  I  know  is,  that  in  the  infernal  line  he  did 
nothing  like  him ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wished  he  had.  It  is  far 
better  that,  as  a  higher,  more  universal,  and  more  beneficent 
variety  of  the  genus  Poet,  he  should  have  been  the  happier  man 
he  was,  and  left  us  the  plump  cheeks  on  his  monument,  instead  of 
the  carking  visage  of  the  great,  but  over-serious,  and  comparatively 
one-sided  Florentine.  Even  the  imagination  of  Spenser,  whom 
we  take  to  have  been  a  "  nervous  gentleman "  compared  with 
Shakspeare,  was  visited  with  no  such  dreams  as  Dante.  Or,  if  it 
was,  he  did  not  choose  to  make  himself  thinner  (as  Dante  says  he 
did)  with  dwelling  upon  them.  He  had  twenty  visions  of  nymphs 
and  bowers,  to  one  of  the  mud  of  Tartarus.  Chaucer,  for  all  he 
was  "a  man  of  this  world"  as  well  as  the  poets'  world,  and  as 
great,  perhaps  a  greater  enemy  of  oppression  than  Dante,  besides 
being  one  of  the  profoundest  masters  of  pathos  that  ever  lived, 
had  not  the  heart  to  conclude  the  story  of  the  famished  father  and 
his  children,  as  finished  by  the  inexorable  anti-Pisan.  But  enough 
of  Dante  in  this  place.  Hobbes,  in  order  to  daunt  the  reader  from 
objecting  to  his  friend  Davenant's  want  of  invention,  says  of  these 
fabulous  creations  in  general,  in  his  letter  prefixed  to  the  poem  of 
Gondibert,  that  "  impenetrable  armours,  enchanted  castles,  invul- 


604  LEIGH  HUNT. 

nerable  bodies,  iron  men,  flying  horses,  and  a  thousand  other  such 
things,  are  easily  feigned  by  them  that  dare." 

These  are  girds  at  Spenser  and  Ariosto.  But,  with  leave  of 
Hobbes  (who  translated  Homer  as  if  on  purpose  to  show  what 
execrable  verses  could  be  written  by  a  philosopher),  enchanted 
castles  and  flying  horses  are  not  easily  feigned,  as  Ariosto  and 
Spenser  feigned  them  ;  and  that  just  makes  all  the  difference.  For 
proof,  see  the  accounts  of  Spenser's  enchanted  castle  in  Book  the 
Third,  Canto  Twelfth,  of  the  Fairy  Queen  ;  and  let  the  reader  of 
Italian  open  the  Orlando  Furioso  at  its  first  introduction  of  the 
Hippogriff  (canto  iv.  st.  3),  where  Bradamante,  coming  to  an  inn, 
hears  a  great  noise,  and  sees  all  the  people  looking  up  at  some- 
thing in  the  air ;  upon  which,  looking  up  herself  she  sees  a  knight 
in  shining  armour  riding  towards  the  sunset  upon  a  creature  with 
variegated  wings,  and  then  dipping  and  disappearing  among  the 
hills.  Chaucer's  steed  of  brass,  that  was 

So  horsly  and  so  quick  of  eye, 

is  copied  from  the  life.  You  might  pat  him  and  feel  his  brazen 
muscles.  Hobbes,  in  objecting  to  what  he  thought  childish,  made 
a  childish  mistake.  His  criticism  is  just  such  as  a  boy  might 
pique  himself  upon,  who  was  educated  on  mechanical  principles, 
and  thought  he  had  outgrown  his  Goody  Two-shoes.  With  a 
wonderful  dimness  of  discernment  in  poetic  matters,  considering 
his  acuteness  in  others,  he  fancies  he  has  settled  the  question  by 
pronouncing  such  creations  "  impossible"  ! 

To  the  brazier  they  are  impossible,  no  doubt ;  but  not  to  the 
poet.  Their  possibility,  if  the  poet  wills  it,  is  to  be  conceded ; 
the  problem  is,  the  creature  being  given,  how  to  square  its  actions 
with  probability,  according  to  the  nature  assumed  of  it.  Hobbes 
did  not  see  that  the  skill  and  beauty  of  these  fictions  lay  in  bring- 
ing them  within  those  very  regions  of  truth  and  likelihood  in 
which  he  thought  they  could  not  exist.  Hence  the  serpent  Py- 
thon of  Chaucer, 

Sleeping  against  the  sun  upon  a  day, 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  " WHAT  IS  POETRY ?"    605 

when  Apollo  slew  him.  Hence  the  chariot- drawing  dolphins  of 
Spenser,  softly  swimming  along  the  shore  lest  they  should  hurt 
themselves  against  the  stones  and  gravel.  Hence  Shakspeare's 
Ariel,  living  under  blossoms,  and  riding  at  evening  on  the  bat ; 
and  his  domestic  namesake  in  the  Rape  of  the  Lock  (the  imagi- 
nation of  the  drawing-room)  saving  a  lady's  petticoat  from  the 
coffee  with  his  plumes,  and  directing  atoms  of  snuff  into  a  cox- 
comb's nose.  In  the  Orlando  Furioso  (canto  xv.  st.  65)  is  a 
wild  story  of  a  cannibal  necromancer,  who  laughs  at  being  cut  to 
pieces,  coming  together  again  like  quicksilver,  and  picking  up  his 
head  when  it  is  cut  off,  sometimes  by  the  hair,  sometimes  by  the 
nose  !  This,  which  would  be  purely  ridiculous  in  the  hands  of  an 
inferior  poet,  becomes  interesting,  nay  grand,  in  Ariosto's,  from 
the  beauties  of  his  style,  and  its  conditional  truth  to  nature.  The 
monster  has  a  fated  hair  on  his  head,  —  a  single  hair,  —  which 
must  be  taken  from  it  before  he  can  be  killed.  Decapitation 
itself  is  of  no  consequence,  without  that  proviso.  The  Paladin 
Astolfo,  who  has  fought  this  phenomenon  on  horseback,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  the  head  and  galloping  off  with  it,  is  therefore 
still  at  a  loss  what  to  be  at.  How  is  he  to  discover  such  a 
needle  in  such  a  bottle  of  hay?  The  trunk  is  spurring  after  him 
to  recover  it,  and  he  seeks  for  some  evidence  of  the  hair  in  vain. 
At  length  he  bethinks  him  of  scalping  the  head.  He  does  so ; 
and  the  moment  the  operation  arrives  at  the  place  of  the  hair,  the 
face  of  the  head  becomes  pale,  the  eyes  turn  in  their  sockets,  and 
the  lifeless  pursuer  tumbles  from  his  horse  : 5 

Then  grew  the  visage  pale,  and  deadly  wet, 
The  eyes  turn'd  in  their  sockets,  drearily; 
And  all  things  show'd  the  villain's  sun  was  set, 
His  trunk  that  was  in  chace,  fell  from  its  horse, 
And  giving  the  last  shudder,  was  a  corse. 

It  is  thus,  and  thus  only,  by  making  Nature  his  companion 
wherever  he  goes,  even  in  the  most  supernatural  region,  that  the 

6  HUNT  quotes  the  Italian  and  translates  it. 


606  LEIGH  HUNT. 

poet,  in  the  words  of  a  very  instructive  phrase,  takes  the  world 
along  with  him.  It  is  true,  he  must  not  (as  the  Platonists  would 
say)  humanize  weakly  or  mistakenly  in  that  region ;  otherwise  he 
runs  the  chance  of  forgetting  to  be  true  to  the  supernatural  itself, 
and  so  betraying  a  want  of  imagination  from  that  quarter.  His 
nymphs  will  have  no  taste  of  their  woods  and  waters ;  his  gods 
and  goddesses  be  only  so  many  fair  or  frowning  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, such  as  we  see  in  ordinary  paintings ;  he  will  be  in  no 
danger  of  having  his  angels  likened  to  a  sort  of  wild-fowl,  as 
Rembrandt  has  made  them  in  his  "Jacob's  Dream."  His  Bac- 
chuses  will  never  remind  us,  like  Titian's,  of  the  force  and  fury,  as 
well  as  of  the  graces  of  wine.  His  Jupiter  will  reduce  no  females 
to  ashes ;  his  fairies  be  nothing  fantastical ;  his  gnomes  not  "  of 
the  earth,  earthy."  And  this  again  will  be  wanting  to  Nature  ;  for 
it  will  be  wanting  to  the  supernatural,  as  Nature  would  have  made 
it,  working  in  a  supernatural  direction.  Nevertheless,  the  poet, 
even  for  imagination's  sake,  must  not  become  a  bigot  to  imagina- 
tive truth,  dragging  it  down  into  the  region  of  the  mechanical  and 
the  limited,  and  losing  sight  of  its  paramount  privilege,  which  is 
to  make  beauty  in  a  human  sense,  the  lady  and  queen  of  the  uni- 
verse. He  would  gain  nothing  by  making  his  ocean-nymphs  mere 
fishy  creatures,  upon  the  plea  that  such  only  could  live  in  the 
water :  his  wood-nymphs  with  faces  of  knotted  oak ;  his  angels 
without  breath  and  song,  because  no  lungs  could  exist  between 
the  earth  and  the  empyrean.  The  Grecian  tendency  in  this 
respect  is  safer  than  the  Gothic  ;  nay,  more  imaginative ;  for  it 
enables  us  to  imagine  beyond  imagination,  and  to  bring  all  things 
healthily  round  to  their  only  present  final  ground  of  sympathy,  — 
the  human.  When  we  go  to  heaven,  we  may  idealize  in  a  super- 
human mode,  and  have  altogether  different  notions  of  the 
beautiful ;  but  till  then  we  must  be  content  with  the  loveliest 
capabilities  of  earth.  The  sea-nymphs  of  Greece  were  still  beau- 
tiful women,  though  they  lived  in  the  water.  The  gills  and  fins  of 
the  ocean's  natural  inhabitants  were  confined  to  their  lowest  semi- 
human  attendants ;  or  if  Triton  himself  was  not  quite  human,  it 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  " WHAT  IS  POETRY ?"    607 

was  because  he  represented  the  fiercer  part  of  the  vitality  of  the 
seas,  as  they  did  the  fairer.8 

******* 

If  a  young  reader  should  ask,  after  all,  What  is  the  quickest  way 
of  knowing  bad  poets  from  good,  the  best  poets  from  the  next 
best,  and  so  on  ?  the  answer  is,  the  only  and  twofold  way :  first, 
the  perusal  of  the  best  poets  with  the  greatest  attention ;  and 
second,  the  cultivation  of  that  love  of  truth  and  beauty  which 
made  them  what  they  are.  Every  true  reader  of  poetry  partakes 
a  more  than  ordinary  portion  of  the  poetic  nature ;  and  no  one 
can  be  completely  such,  who  does  not  love,  or  take  an  interest  in, 
everything  that  interests  the  poet,  from  the  firmament  to  the 
daisy,  —  from  the  highest  heart  of  man  to  the  most  pitiable  of  the 
low.  It  is  a  good  practice  to  read  with  pen  in  hand,  marking 
what  is  liked  or  doubted.  It  rivets  the  attention,  realizes  the 
greatest  amount  of  enjoyment,  and  facilitates  reference.  It 
enables  the  reader  also,  from  time  to  time,  to  see  what  progress 
he  makes  with  his  own  mind,  and  how  it  grows  up  towards  the 
stature  of  its  exalter. 

If  the  same  person  should  ask,  What  class  of  poetry  is  the 
highest  ?  I  should  say,  undoubtedly,  the  Epic ;  for  it  includes  the 
drama,  with  narration  besides ;  or  the  speaking  and  action  of  the 
characters,  with  the  speaking  of  the  poet  himself,  whose  utmost 
address  is  taxed  to  relate  all  well  for  so  long  a  time,  particularly 
in  the  passages  least  sustained  by  enthusiasm.  Whether  this  class 
has  included  the  greatest  poet,  is  another  question  still  under  trial ; 
for  Shakspeare  perplexes  all  such  verdicts,  even  when  the  claim- 
ant is  Homer ;  though,  if  a  judgment  may  be  drawn  from  his  early 
narratives  (Venus  and  Adonis,  and  the  Rape  of  Lucrece),  it  is  to 
be  doubted  whether  even  Shakspeare  could  have  told  a  story  like 

6  In  further  illustration  of  the  power  of  Imagination  HUNT  quotes  from  the 
Iliad,  XVIII.  203-231,  and  XXIV.  468-516,  with  translation.  Fancy  is  treated 
much  more  briefly,  and  then  follow  some  excellent  remarks  on  Versification, 
but  lack  of  space  will  not  permit  a  selection.  The  conclusion  of  the  Essay 
follows. 


608  LEIGH  HUNT. 

Homer,  owing  to  that  incessant  activity  and  superfoetation  of 
thought,  a  little  less  of  which  might  be  occasionally  desired  even 
in  his  plays ;  —  if  it  were  possible,  once  possessing  anything  of 
his,  to  wish  it  away.  Next  to  Homer  and  Shakspeare  come  such 
narrators  as  the  less  universal,  but  still  intenser  Dante;  Milton, 
with  his  dignified  imagination;  the  universal,  profoundly  simple 
Chaucer;  and  luxuriant,  remote  Spenser  —  immortal  child  in 
poetry's  most  poetic  solitudes :  then  the  great  second-rate  dram- 
atists ;  unless  those  who  are  better  acquainted  with  Greek  tragedy 
than  I  am,  demand  a  place  for  them  before  Chaucer  :  then  the 
airy  yet  robust  universality  of  Ariosto;  the  hearty,  out-of-door 
nature  of  Theocritus,  also  a  universalist ;  the  finest  lyrical  poets 
(who  only  take  short  flights,  compared  with  the  narrators)  ;  the 
purely  contemplative  poets  who  have  more  thought  than  feeling ; 
the  descriptive,  satirical,  didactic,  epigrammatic.  It  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  first  poet  of  an  inferior  class 
may  be  superior  to  followers  in  the  train  of  a  higher  one,  though 
the  superiority  is  by  no  means  to  be  taken  for  granted ;  otherwise 
Pope  would  be  superior  to  Fletcher,  and  Butler  to  Pope.  Imagi- 
nation, teeming  with  action  and  character,  makes  the  greatest 
poets ;  feeling  and  thought  the  next ;  fancy  (by  itself)  the  next ; 
wit  the  last.  Thought  by  itself  makes  no  poet  at  all ;  for  the  mere 
conclusions  of  the  understanding  can  at  best  be  only  so  many 
intellectual  matters  of  fact.  Feeling,  even  destitute  of  conscious 
thought,  stands  a  far  better  poetical  chance ;  feeling  being  a  sort 
of  thought  without  the  process  of  thinking,  —  a  grasper  of  the 
truth  without  seeing  it.  And  what  is  very  remarkable,  feeling 
seldom  makes  the  blunders  that  thought  does.  An  idle  distinction 
has  been  made  between  taste  and  judgment.  Taste  is  the  very 
maker  of  judgment.  Put  an  artificial  fruit  in  your  mouth,  or  only 
handle  it,  and  you  will  soon  perceive  the  difference  between 
judging  from  taste  or  tact,  and  judging  from  the  abstract  figment 
called  judgment.  The  latter  does  but  throw  you  into  guesses  and 
doubts.  Hence  the  conceits  that  astonish  us  in  the  gravest,  and 
even  subtlest  thinkers,  whose  taste  is  not  proportionate  to  their 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POETRY ?"    609 

mental  perceptions  :  men  like  Donne,  for  instance ;  who,  apart 
from  accidental  personal  impressions,  seem  to  look  at  nothing  as 
it  really  is,  but  only  as  to  what  may  be  thought  of  it.  Hence,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  delightfulness  of  those  poets  who  never  vio- 
late truth  of  feeling,  whether  in  things  real  or  imaginary ;  who  are 
always  consistent  with  their  object  and  its  requirements ;  and 
who  run  the  great  round  of  nature,  not  to  perplex  and  be  per- 
plexed, but  to  make  themselves  and  us  happy.  And  luckily, 
delightfulness  is  not  incompatible  with  greatness,  willing  soever  as 
men  may  be  in  their  present  imperfect  state  to  set  the  power 
to  subjugate  above  the  power  to  please.  Truth,  of  any  great 
kind  whatsoever,  makes  great  writing.  This  is  the  reason  why 
such  poets  as  Ariosto,  though  not  writing  with  a  constant  detail  of 
thought  and  feeling  like  Dante  are  justly  considered  great  as  well 
as  delightful.  Their  greatness  proves  itself  by  the  same  truth  of 
nature,  and  sustained  power,  though  in  a  different  way.  Their 
action  is  not  so  crowded  and  weighty ;  their  sphere  has  more  ter- 
ritories less  fertile  ;  but  it  has  enchantments  of  its  own,  which  ex- 
cess of  thought  would  spoil,  —  luxuries,  laughing  graces,  animal 
spirits ;  and  not  to  recognize  the  beauty  and  greatness  of  these, 
treated  as  they  treat  them,  is  simply  to  be  defective  in  sympathy. 
Every  planet  is  not  Mars  or  Saturn.  There  is  also  Venus  and 
Mercury.  There  is  one  genius  of  the  south,  and  another  of  the 
north,  and  others  uniting  both.  The  reader  who  is  too  thought- 
less or  too  sensitive  to  like  intensity  of  any  sort,  and  he  who  is  too 
thoughtful  or  too  dull  to  like  anything  but  the  greatest  possible 
stimulus  of  reflection  or  passion,  are  equally  wanting  in  com- 
plexional  fitness  for  a  thorough  enjoyment  of  books.  Ariosto  oc- 
casionally says  as  fine  things  as  Dante,  and  Spenser  as  Shakspeare  ; 
but  the  business  of  both  is  to  enjoy ;  and  in  order  to  partake  their 
enjoyment  to  its  full  extent,  you  must  feel  what  poetry  is  in  the  gen- 
eral as  well  as  the  particular,  must  be  aware  that  there  are  different 
songs  of  the  spheres,  some  fuller  of  notes,  and  others  of  a  sustained 
delight ;  and  as  the  former  keep  you  perpetually  alive  to  thought 
or  passion,  so  from  the  latter  you  receive  a  constant  harmonious 


610  LEIGH  HUNT. 

sense  of  truth  and  beauty,  more  agreeable  perhaps  on  the  whole, 
though  less  exciting.  Ariosto,  for  instance,  does  not  tell  a  story 
with  the  brevity  and  concentrated  passion  of  Dante ;  every  sen- 
tence is  not  so  full  of  matter,  nor  the  style  so  removed  from  the 
indifference  of  prose  ;  yet  you  are  charmed  with  a  truth  of  another 
sort  equally  characteristic  of  the  writer,  equally  drawn  from  nature 
and  substituting  a  healthy  sense  of  enjoyment  for  intenser  emotion. 
Exclusiveness  of  liking  for  this  or  that  mode  of  truth,  only  shows, 
either  that  a  reader's  perceptions  are  limited,  or  that  he  would  sac- 
rifice truth  itself  to  his  favourite  form  of  it.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
who  was  as  trenchant  with  his  pen  as  his  sword,  hailed  the  Faerie 
Queene  of  his  friend  Spenser  in  verses  in  which  he  said  that 
Petrarch  was  thenceforward  to  be  no  more  heard  of;  and  that  in 
all  English  poetry  there  was  nothing  he  counted  "  of  any  price," 
but  the  effusions  of  the  new  author.  Yet  Petrarch  is  still  living ; 
Chaucer  was  not  abolished  by  Sir  Walter;  and  Shakspeare  is 
thought  somewhat  valuable.  A  botanist  might  as  well  have  said, 
that  myrtles  and  oaks  were  to  disappear,  because  acacias  had  come 
up.  It  is  with  the  poet's  creations,  as  with  Nature's,  great  or  small. 
Wherever  truth  and  beauty,  whatever  their  amount,  can  be  worthily 
shaped  into  verse  and  answer  to  some  demand  for  it  in  our  hearts, 
there  poetry  is  to  be  found ;  whether  in  productions  grand  and 
beautiful  as  some  great  event,  or  some  mighty,  leafy  solitude,  or 
no  bigger  and  more  pretending  than  a  sweet  face  or  a  bunch  of 
violets  ;  whether  in  Homer's  epic  or  Gray's  Elegy,  in  the  enchanted 
gardens  of  Ariosto  and  Spenser,  or  the  very  pot-herbs  of  the  School- 
mistress of  Shenstone,  the  balms  of  the  simplicity  of  a  cottage. 
Not  to  know  and  feel  this,  is  to  be  deficient  in  the  universality  of 
Nature  herself,  who  is  a  poetess  on  the  smallest  as  well  as  the 
largest  scale,  and  who  calls  upon  us  to  admire  all  her  productions ; 
not  indeed  with  the  same  degree  of  admiration,  but  with  no  re- 
fusal of  it  except  to  defect. 

I  cannot  draw  this  essay  towards  its  conclusion  better  than  with 
three  memorable  words  of  Milton ;  who  has  said,  that  poetry,  in 
comparison  with  science,  is  "simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate.'1 


ANSWER  TO  THE  QUESTION,  "WHAT  IS  POETRY ?"     611 

By  simple,  he  means  unperplexed  and  self-evident;  by  sensuous, 
genial  and  full  of  imagery  ;  by  passionate,  excited  and  enthusiastic. 
I  am  aware  that  different  constructions  have  been  put  on  some  of 
these  words ;  but  the  context  seems  to  me  to  necessitate  those 
before  us.  I  quote,  however,  not  from  the  original,  but  from  an 
extract  in  the  Remarks  on  Paradise  Lost  by  Richardson. 

What  the  poet  has  to  cultivate  above  all  things  is  love  and  truth  ; 
—  what  he  has  to  avoid,  like  poison,  is  the  fleeting  and  the  false. 
He  will  get  no  good  by  proposing  to  be  "  in  earnest  at  the  moment." 
His  earnestness  must  be  innate  and  habitual ;  born  with  him,  and 
felt  to  be  his  most  precious  inheritance.  "  I  expect  neither  profit 
nor  general  fame  by  my  writings,"  says  Coleridge,  in  the  Preface 
to  his  Poems,  "  and  I  consider  myself  as  having  been  amply  repaid 
without  either.  Poetry  has  been  to  me  its  '  own  exceeding  great 
reward ;  '  it  has  soothed  my  afflictions ;  it  has  multiplied  and 
refined  my  enjoyments  ;  it  has  endeared  solitude  ;  and  it  has  given 
me  the  habit  of  wishing  to  discover  the  good  and  the  beautiful  in 
all  that  meets  and  surrounds  me."  (Pickering's  edition,  p.  10.) 

"  Poetry,"  says  Shelley,  "lifts  the  veil  from  the  hidden  beauty  of 
the  world,  and  makes  familiar  objects  be  as  if  they  were  not  famil- 
iar. It  reproduces  all  that  it  represents  ;  and  the  impersonations 
clothed  in  its  Elysian  light  stand  thenceforward  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  have  once  contemplated  them,  as  memorials  of  that 
gentle  and  exalted  content  which  extends  itself  over  all  thoughts 
and  actions  with  which  it  co-exists.  The  great  secret  of  morals  is 
love,  or  a  going  out  of  our  own  nature,  and  an  identification  of 
ourselves  with  the  beautiful  which  exists  in  thought,  action,  or 
person,  not  our  own.  A  man,  to  be  greatly  good,  must  imagine 
intensely  and  comprehensively ;  he  must  put  himself  in  the  place 
of  another,  and  of  many  others  :  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  his 
species  must  become  his  own.  The  great  instrument  of  moral  good 
is  imagination  ;  and  poetry  administers  to  the  effect  by  acting  upon 
the  cause." —  (Essays  and  Letters,  vol.  i.  p.  16.) 

I  would  not  willingly  say  anything  after  perorations  like  these  ; 
but  as  treatises  on  poetry  may  chance  to  have  auditors  who  think 


612  LEIGH  HUNT. 

themselves  called  upon  to  vindicate  the  superiority  of  what  is 
termed  useful  knowledge,  it  may  be  as  well  to  add,  that  if  the  poet 
may  be  allowed  to  pique  himself  on  any  one  thing  more  than 
another,  compared  with  those  who  undervalue  him,  it  is  on  that 
power  of  undervaluing  nobody,  and  no  attainments  different  from 
his  own,  which  is  given  him  by  the  very  faculty  of  imagination 
they  despise.  The  greater  includes  the  less.  They  do  not  see 
that  their  inability  to  comprehend  him  argues  the  smaller  ca- 
pacity. No  man  recognizes  the  worth  of  utility  more  than  the 
poet :  he  only  desires  that  the  meaning  of  the  term  may  not  come 
short  of  its  greatness,  and  exclude  the  noblest  necessities  of  his 
fellow-creatures.  He  is  quite  as  much  pleased,  for  instance,  with 
the  facilities  for  rapid  conveyance  afforded  him  by  the  railroad  as 
the  dullest  confiner  of  its  advantages  to  that  single  idea,  or  as  the 
greatest  two-idea'd  man  who  varies  that  single  idea  with  hugging 
himself  on  his  "  buttons  "  or  his  good  dinner.  But  he  sees  also  the 
beauty  of  the  country  through  which  he  passes,  of  the  towns,  of  the 
heavens,  of  the  steam-engine  itself,  thundering  and  fuming  along 
like  a  magic  horse,  of  the  affections  that  are  carrying,  perhaps, 
half  the  passengers  on  their  journey,  nay,  of  those  of  the  great  two- 
idea'd  man;  and,  beyond  all  this,  he  discerns  the  incalculable 
amount  of  good,  and  knowledge,  and  refinement,  and  mutual  con- 
sideration, which  this  wonderful  invention  is  fitted  to  circulate 
over  the  globe,  perhaps  to  the  displacement  of  war  itself,  and 
certainly  to  the  diffusion  of  millions  of  enjoyments. 

"  And  a  button-maker,  after  all,  invented  it !  "  cries  our  friend. 

Pardon  me  —  it  was  a  nobleman.  A  button-maker  may  be  a 
very  excellent,  and  a  very  poetical  man  too,  and  yet  not  have 
been  the  first  man  visited  by  a  sense  of  the  gigantic  powers  of  the 
combination  of  water  and  fire.  It  was  a  nobleman  who  first 
thought  of  this  most  poetical  bit  of  science.  It  was  a  nobleman 
who  first  thought  of  it,  —  a  captain  who  first  tried  it,  —  and  a 
button-maker  who  perfected  it.  And  he  who  put  the  nobleman 
on  such  thoughts,  was  the  great  philosopher,  Bacon,  who  said 
that  poetry  had  "something  divine  in  it,"  and  was  necessary  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  human  mind. 


XXXI. 

THOMAS    DE   QUINCEY. 

(1785-1859.) 

BIOGRAPHIES. 

SHAKSPEARE.1 
[Written  in  1838.] 

ON  a  first  review  of  the  circumstances,  we  have  reason  to  feel 
no  little  perplexity  in  finding  the  materials  for  a  Life  of  this  tran- 
scendent writer  so  meagre  and  so  few,  and  amongst  them  the  larger 
part  of  doubtful  authority.  All  the  energy  of  curiosity  directed 
upon  this  subject,  through  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
(for  so  long  it  is  since  Betterton  the  actor  began  to  make  re- 
searches) has  availed  us  little  or  nothing.  Neither  the  local  tradi- 
tions of  his  provincial  birthplace,  though  sharing  with  London 
through  half  a  century  the  honour  of  his  familiar  presence,  nor 
the  recollections  of  that  brilliant  literary  circle  with  whom  he  lived 
in  the  metropolis,  have  yielded  much  more  than  such  an  outline 
of  his  history  as  is  oftentimes  to  be  gathered  from  the  penurious 
records  of  a  gravestone.  That  he  lived,  and  that  he  died,  and 
that  he  was  "a  little  lower  than  the  angels"  —  these  make  up 

1  Contributed  in  1838  to  the  seventh  edition  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica.  Reprinted  in  Vol.  IV.  of  Professor  Masson's  new  and  enlarged  edition 
of  De  Quincey's  Collected  Writings,  which  see  for  valuable  notes.  Professor 
Masson  quotes  from  De  Quincey's  letters,  "  No  paper  ever  cost  me  so  much 
labour :  parts  of  it  have  been  recomposed  three  times  over;  "  and  again,  "The 
Shakspeare  article  cost  me  more  intense  labour  than  any  I  ever  wrote  in  my 
life."  The  first  two  pages  of  the  essay  are  here  omitted. 

613 


614  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE  Y. 

pretty  nearly  the  amount  of  our  undisputed  report.  It  may  be 
doubted  indeed  whether  at  this  day  we  are  as  accurately  acquainted 
with  the*  life  of  Shakspeare  as  with  that  of  Chaucer,  though  di- 
vided from  each  other  by  an  interval  of  two  centuries,  and  (what 
should  have  been  more  effectual  towards  oblivion)  by  the  wars  of 
the  Two  Roses.  And  yet  the  traditional  memory  of  a  rural  and  a 
sylvan  region,  such  as  Warwickshire  at  that  time  was,  is  usually 
exact  as  well  as  tenacious ;  and,  with  respect  to  Shakspeare  in 
particular,  we  may  presume  it  to  have  been  full  and  circumstantial 
through  the  generation  succeeding  to  his  own,  not  only  from  the 
curiosity,  and  perhaps  something  of  a  scandalous  interest,  which 
would  pursue  the  motions  of  one  living  so  large  a  part  of  his  life 
at  a  distance  from  his  wife,  but  also  from  the  final  reverence  and 
honour  which  would  settle  upon  the  memory  of  a  poet  so  pre- 
eminently successful ;  of  one  who,  in  a  space  of  five-and-twenty 
years,  after  running  a  bright  career  in  the  capital  city  of  his  native 
land,  and  challenging  notice  from  the  throne,  had  retired  with  an 
ample  fortune  created  by  his  personal  efforts  and  by  labours  purely 
intellectual. 

How  are  we  to  account  then  for  that  deluge,  as  if  from  Lethe, 
which  has  swept  away  so  entirely  the  traditional  memorials  of 
one  so  illustrious  ?  Such  is  the  fatality  of  error  which  overclouds 
every  question  connected  with  Shakspeare,  that  two  of  his  prin- 
cipal critics,  Steevens  and  Malone,  have  endeavoured  to  solve  the 
difficulty  by  cutting  it  with  a  falsehood.  They  deny  in  effect 
that  he  was  illustrious  in  the  century  succeeding  to  his  own,  how- 
ever much  he  has  since  become  so.  We  shall  first  produce  their 
statements  in  their  own  words,  and  we  shall  then  briefly  review 
them. 

Steevens  delivers  his  opinion  in  the  following  terms :  —  "How 
little  Shakspeare  was  once  read  may  be  understood  from  Tate, 
who,  in  his  dedication  to  the  altered  play  of  '  King  Lear,'  speaks 
of  the  original  as  an  obscure  piece,  recommended  to  his  notice  by 
a  friend ;  and  the  author  of  the  '  Tatler  '  having  occasion  to  quote 
a  few  lines  out  of  '  Macbeth,'  was  content  to  receive  them  from 


BIOGRAPHIES.  615 

Davenant's  alteration  of  that  celebrated  drama,  in  which  almost 
every  original  beauty  is  either  awkwardly  disguised  or  arbitrarily 
omitted."  Another  critic,  who  cites  this  passage  from  Steevens, 
pursues  the  hypothesis  as  follows  :  —  "In  fifty  years  after  his  death 
Dryden  mentions  that  he  was  then  become  a  little  obsolete.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century  Lord  Shaftesbury  complains  of 
his  rude  unpolished  style  and  his  antiqtiated  phrase  and  wit.  It 
is  certain  that  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  his  death,  partly 
owing  to  the  immediate  revolution  and  rebellion,  and  partly  to  the 
licentious  taste  encouraged  in  Charles  II. 's  time,  and  perhaps 
partly  to  the  incorrect  state  of  his  works,  he  was  ALMOST 
ENTIRELY  NEGLECTED."  The  critic  then  goes  on  to  quote 
with  approbation  the  opinion  of  Malone  —  that  "  if  he  had  been 
read,  admired,  studied,  and  imitated  in  the  same  degree  as  he  is 
now,  the  enthusiasm  of  some  one  or  other  of  his  admirers  in  the 
last  age  would  have  induced  him  to  make  some  inquiries  concern- 
ing the  history  of  his  theatrical  career,  and  the  anecdotes  of  his 
private  life."  After  which  this  enlightened  writer  re-affirms  and 
clenches  the  judgment  he  has  quoted  by  saying  :  "  His  admirers, 
however,  if  he  had  admirers  in  that  age,  possessed  no  portion  of 
such  enthusiasm." 

It  may  perhaps  be  an  instructive  lesson  to  young  readers  if  we 
now  show  them,  by  a  short  sifting  of  these  confident  dogmatists, 
how  easy  it  is  for  a  careless  or  a  half-read  man  to  circulate  the 
most  absolute  falsehoods  under  the  semblance  of  truth  ;  falsehoods 
which  impose  upon  himself  as  much  as  they  do  upon  others.  We 
believe  that  not  one  word  or  illustration  is  uttered  in  the  sentence 
cited  from  these  three  critics  which  is  not  virtually  in  the  very 
teeth  of  the  truth. 

To  begin  with  Mr.  Nahum  Tate.  This  poor  grub  of  literature, 
if  he  did  really  speak  of  "Lear"  as  "an  obscure  piece,  recom- 
mended to  his  notice  by  a  friend,"  of  which  we  must  be  allowed 
to  doubt,  was  then  uttering  a  conscious  falsehood.  It  happens 
that  "  Lear  "  was  one  of  the  few  Shakspearian  dramas  which  had 
kept  the  stage  unaltered.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  a  mercenary  motive 


616  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE Y. 

in  such  an  artifice  as  this.  Mr.  Nahum  Tate  is  not  of  a  class  of 
whom  it  can  be  safe  to  say  that  they  are  "  well  known  ; "  they  and 
their  desperate  tricks  are  essentially  obscure,  and  good  reason  he 
has  to  exult  in  the  felicity  of  such  obscurity,  for  else  this  same 
vilest  of  travesties,  Mr.  Nahum's  "  Lear,"  would  consecrate  his 
name  to  everlasting  scorn.  For  himself,  he  belonged  to  the  age 
of  Dryden  rather  than  of  Pope ;  he  "  flourished,"  if  we  can  use 
such  a  phrase  of  one  who  was  always  withering,  about  the  era  of 
the  Revolution  ;  and  his  "  Lear,"  we  believe,  was  arranged  in  the 
year  1682.  But  the  family  to  which  he  belongs  is  abundantly 
recorded  in  the  "Dunciad";  and  his  own  name  will  be  found 
amongst  its  catalogues  of  heroes. 

With  respect  to  the  author  of  the  "  Tatler"  a  very  different 
explanation  is  requisite.  Steevens  means  the  reader  to  understand 
Addison ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  particular  paper  in  ques- 
tion was  from  his  pen.  Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  natural 
than  to  quote  from  the  common  form  of  the  play  as  then  in 
possession  of  the  stage.  It  was  there,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  a  fine 
gentleman  living  upon  town,  and  not  professing  any  deep  scholastic 
knowledge  of  literature  (a  light  in  which  we  are  always  to  regard 
the  writers  of  the  "  Spectator,"  "  Guardian,"  &c.),  would  be  likely 
to  have  learned  anything  he  quoted  from  "Macbeth."  This  we 
say  generally  of  the  writers  in  those  periodical  papers ;  but  with 
reference  to  Addison  in  particular,  it  is  time  to  correct  the  popular 
notion  of  his  literary  character,  or  at  least  to  mark  it  by  severer 
lines  of  distinction.  It  is  already  pretty  well  known  that  Addison 
had  no  very  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  his  own 
country.  It  is  known  also  that  he  did  not  think  such  an  acquaint- 
ance any  ways  essential  to  the  character  of  an  elegant  scholar  and 
litterateur.  Quite  enough  he  found  it,  and  more  than  enough 
for  the  time  he  had  to  spare,  if  he  could  maintain  a  tolerable 
familiarity  with  the  foremost  Latin  poets,  and  a  very  slender 
one  indeed  with  the  Grecian.  How  slender  we  can  see  in  his 
"Travels."  Of  modern  authors  none  as  yet  had  been  published 
with  notes,  commentaries,  or  critical  collations  of  the  text ;  and 


BIOGRAPHIES.  617 

accordingly  Addison  looked  upon  all  of  them,  except  those  few 
who  professed  themselves  followers  in  the  retinue  and  equipage 
of  the  ancients,  as  creatures  of  a  lower  race.  Boileau,  as  a  mere 
imitator  and  propagator  of  Horace,  he  read,  and  probably  little 
else,  amongst  the  French  Classics.  Hence  it  arose  that  he  took 
upon  himself  to  speak  sneeringly  of  Tasso.  To  this,  which  was 
a  bold  act  for  his  timid  mind,  he  was  emboldened  by  the  counte- 
nance of  Boileau.  Of  the  elder  Italian  authors,  such  as  Ariosto, 
and  a  fortiori  Dante,  he  knew  absolutely  nothing.  Passing  to  our 
own  literature,  it  is  certain  that  Addison  was  profoundly  ignorant 
of  Chaucer  and  of  Spenser.  Milton  only  —  and  why?  simply 
because  he  was  a  brilliant  scholar,  and  stands  like  a  bridge  be- 
tween the  Christian  literature  and  the  Pagan  —  Addison  had  read 
and  esteemed.  There  was  also  in  the  very  constitution  of  Milton's 
mind,  in  the  majestic  regularity  and  planetary  solemnity  of  its  epic 
movements,  something  which  he  could  understand  and  appreciate  : 
as  to  the  meteoric  and  incalculable  eccentricities  of  the  dramatic 
mind,  as  it  displayed  itself  in  the  heroic  age  of  our  drama, 
amongst  the  Titans  of  1590—1630,  they  confounded  and  over- 
whelmed him. 

In  particular,  with  regard  to  Shakspeare,  we  shall  now  proclaim 
a  discovery  which  we  made  some  twenty  years  ago.  We,  like 
others,  from  seeing  frequent  references  to  Shakspeare  in  the 
"  Spectator,"  had  acquiesced  in  the  common  belief  that,  although 
Addison  was  no  doubt  profoundly  unlearned  in  Shakspeare's 
language,  and  thoroughly  unable  to  do  him  justice  (and  this  we 
might  well  assume,  since  his  great  rival  Pope,  who  had  expressly 
studied  Shakspeare,  was,  after  all,  so  memorably  deficient  in  the 
appropriate  knowledge),  yet  that  of  course  he  had  a  vague  popular 
knowledge  of  the  mighty  poet's  cardinal  dramas.  Accident  only 
led  us  into  a  discovery  of  our  mistake.  Twice  or  thrice  we  had 
observed  that,  if  Shakspeare  were  quoted,  that  paper  turned  out 
not  to  be  Addison's ;  and  at  length,  by  express  examination,  we 
ascertained  the  curious  fact  that  Addison  has  never  in  one  instance 
quoted  or  made  any  reference  to  Shakspeare.  But  was  this,  as 


618  THOMAS  DE    QUINCE Y. 

Steevens  most  disingenuously  pretends,  to  be  taken  as  an  exponent 
of  the  public  feeling  towards  Shakspeare  ?  Was  Addison's  neglect 
representative  of  a  general  neglect?  If  so,  whence  came  Rowe's 
edition,  Pope's,  Theobald's,  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer's,  Bishop  War- 
burton's,  all  upon  the  heels  of  one  another?  With  such  facts 
staring  him  in  the  face,  how  shameless  must  be  that  critic  who 
could,  in  support  of  such  a  thesis,  refer  to  "  the  author  of  the 
1  TatlerJ  "  contemporary  with  all  these  editors.  The  truth  is, 
Addison  was  well  aware  of  Shakspeare 's  hold  on  the  popular 
mind  ;  too  well  aware  of  it.  The  feeble  constitution  of  the  poetic 
faculty  as  existing  in  himself,  forbade  his  sympathising  with  Shak- 
speare ;  the  proportions  were  too  colossal  for  his  delicate  vision ; 
and  yet,  as  one  who  sought  popularity  himself,  he  durst  not  shock 
what  perhaps  he  viewed  as  a  national  prejudice.  Those  who  have 
happened,  like  ourselves,  to  see  the  effect  of  passionate  music  and 
"  deep-inwoven  harmonics "  upon  the  feeling  of  an  idiot,  may 
conceive  what  we  mean.  Such  music  does  not  utterly  revolt  the 
idiot ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  a  strange  but  horrid  fascination  for 
him  :  it  alarms,  irritates,  disturbs,  makes  him  profoundly  unhappy  ; 
and  chiefly  by  unlocking  imperfect  glimpses  of  thoughts  and  slum- 
bering instincts,  which  it  is  for  his  peace  to  have  entirely  obscured, 
because  for  him  they  can  be  revealed  only  partially,  and  with  the 
sad  effect  of  throwing  a  baleful  gleam  upon  his  blighted  condition. 
Do  we  mean,  then,  to  compare  Addison  with  an  idiot  ?  Not  gen- 
erally, by  any  means.  Nobody  can  more  sincerely  admire  him 
where  he  was  a  man  of  real  genius  —  viz.,  in  his  delineations  of 
character  and  manners,  or  in  the  exquisite  delicacies  of  his 
humour.  But  assuredly  Addison  as  a  poet  was  amongst  the  sons 
of  the  feeble,  and  between- the  authors  of  "Cato"  and  "King 
Lear  "  there  was  a  gulf  never  to  be  bridged  over. 

But  Dryden,  we  are  told,  pronounced  Shakspeare  already  in  his 
day  "a  little  obsolete."  Here,  now,  we  have  wilful,  deliberate 
falsehood.  Obsolete,  in  Dryden's  meaning,  does  not  imply  that 
he  was  so  with  regard  to  his  popularity  (the  question  then  at 
issue),  but  with  regard  to  his  diction  and  choice  of  words.  To 


BIOGRAPHIES.  619 

cite  Dryden  as  a  witness  for  any  purpose  against  Shakspeare  — 
Dryden,  who  of  all  men  had  the  most  ransacked  wit  and  exhausted 
language  in  celebrating  the  supremacy  of  Shakspeare's  genius  — 
does  indeed  require  as  much  shamelessness  in  feeling  as  mendacity 
in  principle.2 

But  then  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  may  be  taken  as  half-way 
between  Dryden  and  Pope  (Dryden  died  in  1700,  Pope  was  then 
twelve  years  old,  and  Lord  S.  wrote  chiefly,  we  believe,  between 
1700  and  1710),  "complains,"  it  seems,  "of  his  rude  unpolished 
style,  and  his  antiquated  phrase  and  wit."  What  if  he  does  ?  Let 
the  whole  truth  be  told,  and  then  we  shall  see  how  much  stress  is  to 
be  laid  upon  such  a  judgment.  The  second  Lord  Shaftesbury,  the 
author  of  the  "  Characteristics,"  was  the  grandson  of  that  famous 
political  agitator,  the  Chancellor  Shaftesbury,  who  passed  his  whole 
life  in  storms  of  his  own  creation.  The  second  Lord  Shaftesbury 
was  a  man  of  crazy  constitution,  querulous  from  ill-health,  and  had 
received  an  eccentric  education  from  his  eccentric  grandfather. 
He  was  practised  daily  in  talking  Latin,  to  which  afterwards  he 
added  a  competent  study  of  the  Greek ;  and  finally  he  became 
unusually  learned  for  his  rank,  but  the  most  absolute  and  undis- 
tinguishing  pedant  that  perhaps  literature  has  to  show.  He  sneers 
continually  at  the  regular-built  academic  pedant ;  but  he  himself, 
though  no  academic,  was  essentially  the  very  impersonation  of 
pedantry.  No  thought  however  beautiful,  no  image  however 
magnificent,  could  conciliate  his  praise  as  long  as  it  was  clothed 
in  English ;  but  present  him  with  the  most  trivial  commonplaces 
in  Greek,  and  he  unaffectedly  fancied  them  divine ;  mistaking  the 
pleasurable  sense  of  his  own  power  in  a  difficult  and  rare  accom- 
plishment for  some  peculiar  force  or  beauty  in  the  passage.  Such 
was  the  outline  of  his  literary  taste.  And  was  it  upon  Shakspeare 
only,  or  upon  him  chiefly,  that  he  lavished  his  pedantry?  Far 
from  it.  He  attacked  Milton  with  no  less  fervour ;  he  attacked 
Dryden  with  a  thousand  times  more.  Jeremy  Taylor  he  quoted 
only  to  ridicule ;  and  even  Locke,  the  confidential  friend  of  his 

2  See  ante,  pp.  243-4,  for  Dryden's  opinion  of  Shakspeare. 


620  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE Y. 

grandfather,  he  never  alludes  to  without  a  sneer.  As  to  Shak- 
speare,  so  far  from  Lord  Shaftesbury's  censures  arguing  his  de- 
ficient reputation,  the  very  fact  of  his  noticing  him  at  all  proves 
his  enormous  popularity ;  for  upon  system  he  noticed  those  only 
who  ruled  the  public  taste.  The  insipidity  of  his  objections  to 
Shakspeare  may  be  judged  from  this,  that  he  comments  in  a  spirit 
of  absolute  puerility  upon  the  name  Desdemona,  as  though  inten- 
tionally formed  from  the  Greek  word  for  superstition.  In  fact,  he 
had  evidently  read  little  beyond  the  list  of  names  in  Shakspeare  ; 
yet  there  is  proof  enough  that  the  irresistible  beauty  of  what  little 
he  had  read  was  too  much  for  all  his  pedantry,  and  startled  him 
exceedingly ;  for  ever  afterwards  he  speaks  of  Shakspeare  as  one 
who,  with  a  little  aid  from  Grecian  sources,  really  had  something 
great  and  promising  about  him.  As  to  modern  authors,  neither 
this  Lord  Shaftesbury  nor  Addison  read  anything  for  the  latter 
years  of  their  life  but  Bayle's  Dictionary.  And  most  of  the  little 
scintillations  of  erudition  which  may  be  found  in  the  notes  to 
the  "  Characteristics,"  and  in  the  Essays  of  Addison,  are  derived, 
almost  without  exception,  and  uniformly  without  acknowledgment, 
from  Bayle. 

Finally,  with  regard  to  the  sweeping  assertion,  that  "  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years  after  his  death  Shakspeare  was  almost  entirely 
neglected,"  we  shall  meet  this  scandalous  falsehood  by  a  rapid 
view  of  his  fortunes  during  the  century  in  question.  The  tradition 
has  always  been,  that  Shakspeare  was  honoured  by  the  special 
notice  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  well  as  by  that  of  James  I.  At 
one  time  we  were  disposed  to  question  the  truth  of  this  tradition ; 
but  that  was  for  want  of  having  read  attentively  the  lines  of  Ben 
Jonson  to  the  memory  of  Shakspeare,  those  generous  lines  which 
have  so  absurdly  been  taxed  with  faint  praise.  Jonson  could  make 
no  mistake  on  this  point :  he,  as  one  of  Shakspeare's  familiar 
companions,  must  have  witnessed  at  the  very  time,  and  accom- 
panied with  friendly  sympathy,  every  motion  of  royal  favour 
towards  Shakspeare.  Now  he,  in  words  which  leave  no  room  for 
doubt,  exclaims  — 


BIOGRAPHIES.  621 

Sweet  swan  of  Avon !  what  a  sight  it  were 

To  see  thee  in  our  waters  yet  appear, 

And  make  those  nights  upon  the  banks  of  Thames 

That  so  did  take  Eliza  and  our  James. 3 

These  princes,  then,  were  taken,  were  fascinated,  with  some  of 
Shakspeare's  dramas.  In  Elizabeth  the  approbation  would  proba- 
bly be  sincere.  In  James  we  can  readily  suppose  it  to  have  been 
assumed,  for  he  was  a  pedant  in  a_  different  sense  from  Lord 
Shaftesbury ;  not  from  undervaluing  modern  poetry,  but  from 
caring  little  or  nothing  for  any  poetry,  although  he  wrote  about 
its  mechanic  rules.  Still,  the  royal  imprimatur  would  be  influential 
and  serviceable  no  less  when  offered  hypocritically  than  in  full 
sincerity.  Next  let  us  consider,  at  the  very  moment  of  Shak- 
speare's death,  who  were  the  leaders  of  the  British  youth,  the 
principes  juventutis,  in  the  two  fields,  equally  important  to  a  great 
poet's  fame,  of  rank  and  of  genius?  The  Prince  of  Wales  and 
John  Milton;  the  first  being  then  about  sixteen  years  old,  the 
other  about  eight.  Now  these  two  great  powers,  as  we  may  call 
them,  these  presiding  stars  over  all  that  was  English  in  thought 
and  action,  were  both  impassioned  admirers  of  Shakspeare.  Each 
of  them  counts  for  many  thousands.  The  Prince  of  Wales  had 
learned  to  appreciate  Shakspeare,  not  originally  from  reading 
him,  but  from  witnessing  the  court  representations  of  his  plays  at 
Whitehall.  Afterwards  we  know  that  he  made  Shakspeare  his 
closet  companion,  for  he  was  reproached  with  doing  so  by 
Milton.  And  we  know  also,  from  the  just  criticism  pronounced 
upon  the  character  and  diction  of  Caliban  by  one  of  Charles's 
confidential  counsellors,  Lord  Falkland,  that  the  king's  admiration 
of  Shakspeare  had  impressed  a  determination  upon  the  Court 
reading.  As  to  Milton,  by  double  prejudices,  puritanical  and  clas- 
sical, his  mind  had  been  preoccupied  against  the  full  impressions 
of  Shakspeare.  And  we  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  keep- 

8  From  Ben  Jonson's  lines  "  To  the  memory  of  my  beloved  Master  William 
Shakspeare,  and  what  he  hath  left  us,"  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio  edition  of 
Shakspeare,  1623. 


622  THOMAS  DE    QUINCE Y. 

ing  the  sympathies  of  love  and  admiration  in  a  dormant  state,  or 
state  of  abeyance ;  an  effort  of  self-conquest  realised  in  more 
cases  than  one  by  the  ancient  fathers,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  with 
regard  to  the  profane  classics.  Intellectually  they  admired,  and 
would  not  belie  their  admiration ;  but  they  did  not  give  their 
hearts  cordially,  they  did  not  abandon  themselves  to  their  natural 
impulses.  They  averted  their  eyes  and  weaned  their  attention 
from  the  dazzling  object.  §uch,  probably,  was  Milton's  state  of 
feeling  towards  Shakspeare  after  1642,  when  the  theatres  were 
suppressed,  and  the  fanatical  fervour  in  its  noontide  heat.  Yet 
even  then  he  did  not  belie  his  reverence  intellectually  for  Shak- 
speare ;  and  in  his  younger  days  we  know  that  he  had  spoken 
more  enthusiastically  of  Shakspeare  than  he  ever  did  again  of 
any  uninspired  author.  Not  only  did  he  address  a  sonnet  to 
his  memory,  in  which  he  declares  that  kings  would  wish  to  die, 
if  by  dying  they  could  obtain  such  a  monument  in  the  hearts  of 
men ;  but  he  also  speaks  of  him  in  his  //  Penseroso  as  the 
tutelary  genius  of  the  English  stage.  In  this  transmission  of  the 
torch  (Aa/xTraSo^opttt)  Dryden  succeeds  to  Milton  :  he  was  born 
nearly  thirty  years  later ;  about  thirty  years  they  were  contem- 
poraries, and  by  thirty  years,  or  nearly,  Dryden  survived  his 
great  leader.  Dryden,  in  fact,  lived  out  the  seventeenth  century. 
And  we  have  now  arrived  within  nine  years  of  the  era  when  the 
critical  editions  started  in  hot  succession  to  one  another.  The 
names  we  have  mentioned  were  the  great  influential  names  of 
the  century.  But  of  inferior  homage  there  was  no  end.  How 
came  Betterton  the  actor,  how  came  Davenant,  how  came  Rowe, 
or  Pope,  by  their  intense  (if  not  always  sound)  admiration  for 
Shakspeare,  unless  they  had  found  it  fuming  upwards  like  incense 
to  the  Pagan  d-eities  in  ancient  times  from  altars  erected  at  every 
turning  upon  all  the  paths  of  men? 

But  it  is  objected  that  inferior  dramatists  were  sometimes  pre- 
ferred to  Shakspeare ;  and  again,  that  vile  travesties  of  Shak- 
speare were  preferred  to  the  authentic  dramas.  As  to  the  first 
argument,  let  it  be  remembered  that  if  the  saints  of  the  chapel 


BIOGRAPHIES.  623 

are  always  in  the  same  honour  because  their  men  are  simply  dis- 
charging a  duty  which,  once  due,  will  be  due  for  ever,  the  saints 
of  the  theatre,  on  the  other  hand,  must  bend  to  the  local  genius, 
and  to  the  very  reasons  for  having  a  theatre  at  all.  Men  go 
thither  for  amusement ;  this  is  the  paramount  purpose,  and  even 
acknowledged  merit  or  absolute  superiority  must  give  way  to  it. 
Does  a  man  at  Paris  expect  to  see  Moliere  reproduced  in  pro- 
portion to  his  admitted  precedency  in  the  French  drama?  On 
the  contrary,  that  very  precedency  argues  such  a  familiarisation 
with  his  works,  that  those  who  are  in  quest  of  relaxation  will 
reasonably  prefer  any  recent  drama  to  that  which,  having  lost 
all  its  novelty,  has  lost  much  of  its  excitement.  We  speak  of 
ordinary  minds ;  but  in  cases  of  public  entertainments,  deriving 
part  of  their  power  from  scenery  and  stage  pomp,  novelty  is  for 
all  minds  an  essential  condition  of  attraction.  Moreover,  in 
some  departments  of  the  comic,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  when 
writing  in  combination,  really  had  a  freedom  and  breadth  of 
manner  which  excels  the  comedy  of  Shakspeare.  As  to  the 
altered  Shakspeare  as  taking  precedency  of  the  genuine  Shak- 
speare no  argument  can  be  so  frivolous.  The  public  were  never 
allowed  a  choice ;  the  great  majority  of  an  audience  even  now 
cannot  be  expected  to  carry  the  real  Shakspeare  in  their  mind,  so 
as  to  pursue  a  comparison  between  that  and  the  alteration.  Their 
comparisons  must  be  exclusively  amongst  what  they  have  oppor- 
tunities of  seeing ;  that  is,  between  the  various  pieces  presented 
to  them  by  the  managers  of  theatres.  Further  than  this  it  is 
impossible  for  them  to  extend  their  office  of  judging  and  collat- 
ing ;  and  the  degenerate  taste  which  substituted  the  caprices  of 
Davenant,  the  rants  of  Dryden,  or  the  filth  of  Tate,  for  the  jewel- 
lery of  Shakspeare,  cannot  with  any  justice  be  charged  upon  the 
public,  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  whom  was  furnished  with  any 
means  of  comparing,  but  exclusively  upon  those  (viz.,  theatrical 
managers)  who  had  the  very  amplest.  Yet  even  in  excuse  for 
them  much  may  be  said.  The  very  length  of  some  plays  com- 
pelled them  to  make  alterations.  The  best  of  Shakspeare's 


624  THOMAS  DE    QUINCEY. 

dramas,  "King  Lear,"  is  the  least  fitted  for  representation;  and, 
even  for  the  vilest  alteration,  it  ought  in  candour  to  be  considered 
that  possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law.  He  who  would  not  have 
introduced  was  often  obliged  to  retain. 

Finally,  it  is  urged  that  the  small  number  of  editions  through 
which  Shakspeare  passed  in  the  seventeenth  century,  furnishes  a 
separate  argument,  and  a  conclusive  one,  against  his  popularity. 
We  answer,  that  considering  the  bulk  of  his  plays  collectively,  the 
editions  were  not  few ;  compared  with  any  known  case,  the  copies 
sold  of  Shakspeare  were  quite  as  many  as  could  be  expected  under 
the  circumstances.  Ten  or  fifteen  times  as  much  consideration 
went  to  the  purchase  of  one  great  folio  like  Shakspeare,  as  would 
attend  the  purchase  of  a  little  volume  like  Waller  or  Donne. 
Without  reviews,  or  newspapers,  or  advertisements  to  diffuse  the 
knowledge  of  books,  the  progress  of  literature  was  necessarily 
slow,  and  its  expansion  narrow.  But  this  is  a  topic  which  has 
always  been  treated  unfairly,  not  with  regard  to  Shakspeare  only, 
but  to  Milton,  as  well  as  many  others.  The  truth  is,  we  have  not 
facts  enough  to  guide  us ;  for  the  number  of  editions  often  tells 
nothing  accurately  as  to  the  number  of  copies.  With  respect  to 
Shakspeare  it  is  certain  that,  had  his  masterpieces  been  gathered 
into  small  volumes,  Shakspeare  would  have  had  a  most  extensive 
sale.  As  it  was,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  from  his  own  genera- 
tion, throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  and  until  the  eighteenth 
began  to  accommodate,  not  any  greater  popularity  in  him,  but  a 
greater  taste  for  reading  in  the  public,  his  fame  never  ceased 
to  be  viewed  as  a  national  trophy  of  honour ;  and  the  most 
illustrious  men  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  no  whit  less  fer- 
vent in  their  admiration  than  those  of  the  eighteenth  and  the 
nineteenth,  either  as  respected  its  strength  and  sincerity,  or  as 
respected  its  open  profession. 

It  is  therefore  a  false  notion,  that  the  general  sympathy  with 
the  merits  of  Shakspeare  ever  beat  with  a  languid  or  intermitting 
pulse.  Undoubtedly,  in  times  when  the  functions  of  critical 
journals  and  of  newspapers  were  not  at  hand  to  diffuse  or  to 


BIOGRAPHIES.  625 

strengthen  the  impressions  which  emanated  from  the  capital,  all 
opinions  must  have  travelled  slowly  into  the  provinces.  But  even 
then,  whilst  the  perfect  organs  of  communication  were  wanting, 
indirect  substitutes  were  supplied  by  the  necessities  of  the  times, 
or  by  the  instincts  of  political  zeal.  Two  channels  especially  lay 
open  between  the  great  central  organ  of  the  national  mind  and 
the  remotest  provinces.  Parliaments  were  occasionally  summoned 
(for  the  judges'  circuits  were  too  brief  to  produce  much  effect), 
and  during  their  longest  suspensions  the  nobility,  with  large  reti- 
nues, continually  resorted  to  the  Court.  But  an  intercourse  more 
constant  and  more  comprehensive  was  maintained  through  the 
agency  of  the  two  universities.  Already,  in  the  time  of  James  I., 
the  growing  importance  of  the  gentry,  and  the  consequent  birth 
of  a  new  interest  in  political  questions,  had  begun  to  express  itself 
at  Oxford,  and  still  more  so  at  Cambridge.  Academic  persons 
stationed  themselves  as  sentinels  at  London,  for  the  purpose  of 
watching  the  Court  and  the  course  of  public  affairs.  These  per- 
sons wrote  letters,  like  those  of  the  celebrated  Joseph  Mede, 
which  we  find  in  Ellis's  Historical  Collections,  reporting  to  their 
fellow-collegians  all  the  novelties  of  public  life  as  they  arose,  or 
personally  carried  down  such  reports,  and  thus  conducted  the 
general  feelings  at  the  centre  into  lesser  centres,  from  which  again 
they  were  diffused  into  the  ten  thousand  parishes  of  England  ;  for 
(with  a  very  few  exceptions  in  favour  of  poor  benefices,  Welsh 
or  Cumbrian)  every  parish  priest  must  unavoidably  have  spent 
his  three  years  at  one  or  other  of  the  English  universities.  And 
by  this  mode  of  diffusion  it  is  that  we  can  explain  the  strength 
with  which  Shakspeare's  thoughts  and  diction  impressed  them- 
selves from  a  very  early  period  upon  the  national  literature,  and 
even  more  generally  upon  the  national  thinking  and  conversation.4 
****** 

*  See  De  Quincey's  note  in  Masson's  edition,  concluding  as  follows :  "  The 
reinforcement  of  the  general  language  by  aids  from  the  mintage  of  Shakspeare 
had  already  commenced  in  the  seventeenth  century."  Pp.  33-69  are  here 
omitted. 


626  THOMAS  DE    QUINCE Y. 

After  this  review  of  Shakspeare's  life  it  becomes  our  duty  to 
take  a  summary  survey  of  his  works,  of  his  intellectual  powers, 
and  of  his  station  in  literature  —  a  station  which  is  now  irre- 
vocably settled,  not  so  much  (which  happens  in  other  cases)  by  a 
vast  over-balance  of  favourable  suffrages,  or  by  acclamation ;  not 
so  much  by  the  voices  of  those  who  admire  him  up  to  the  verge 
of  idolatry,  as  by  the  acts  of  those  who  everywhere  seek  for  his 
works  among  the  primal  necessities  of  life,  demand  them,  and 
crave  them  as  they  do  their  daily  bread ;  not  so  much  by  eulogy 
openly  proclaiming  itself,  as  by  the  silent  homage  recorded  in  the 
endless  multiplication  of  what  he  has  bequeathed  us ;  not  so 
much  by  his  own  compatriots,  who,  with  regard  to  almost  every 
other  author,5  compose  the  total  amount  of  his  effective  audience, 
as  by  the  unanimous  "  All  hail ! "  of  intellectual  Christendom ; 
finally,  not  by  the  hasty  partisanship  of  his  own  generation,  nor 
by  the  biassed  judgment  of  an  age  trained  in  the  same  modes  of 
feeling  and  of  thinking  with  himself,  but  by  the  solemn  award  of 
generation  succeeding  to  generation,  of  one  age  correcting  the 
obliquities  or  peculiarities  of  another;  by  the  verdict  of  two 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  which  have  now  elapsed  since  the  very 
latest  of  his  creations,  or  of  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  years 
if  we  date  from  the  earliest :  a  verdict  which  has  been  continually 
revived  and  re-opened,  probed,  searched,  vexed,  by  criticism  in 
every  spirit,  from  the  most  genial  and  intelligent  down  to  the 
most  malignant  and  scurrilously  hostile  which  feeble  heads  and 
great  ignorance  could  suggest,  when  co-operating  with  impure 
hearts  and  narrow  sensibilities ;  a  verdict,  in  short,  sustained  and 
countersigned  by  a  longer  series  of  writers,  many  of  them  emi- 

6  "  An  exception  ought  perhaps  to  be  made  for  Sir  Walter  Scott  and 
Cervantes;  but  with  regard  to  all  other  writers  ...  it  still  remains  true  (and 
the  very  sale  of  the  books  is  proof  sufficient)  that  an  alien  author  never  does 
take  root  in  the  general  sympathies  out  of  his  own  country.  He  takes  his 
station  in  libraries,  he  is  read  by  the  man  of  learned  leisure,  he  is  known  and 
valued  by  the  refined  and  the  elegant,  but  he  is  not  (what  Shakspeare  is 
for  Germany  and  America)  in  any  proper  sense  a  popular  favourite.''  —  From 
DE  QULNCEY'S  note. 


BIOGRAPHIES.  627 

nent  for  wit  or  learning,  than  were  ever  before  congregated  upon 
any  inquest  relating  to  any  author,  be  he  who  he  might,  ancient 
or  modem,  Pagan  or  Christian.  It  was  a  most  witty  saying  with 
respect  to  a  piratical  and  knavish  publisher,  who  made  a  trade  of 
insulting  the  memories  of  deceased  authors  by  forged  writings, 
that  he  was  "among  the  new  terrors  of  death."  But  in  the 
gravest  sense  it  may  be  affirmed  of  Shakspeare  that  he  is  among 
the  modern  luxuries  of  life ;  that  life,  in  fact,  is  a  new  thing, 
and  one  more  to  be  coveted,  since  Shakspeare  has  extended  the 
domains  of  human  consciousness,  and  pushed  its  dark  frontiers 
into  regions  not  so  much  as  dimly  descried  or  even  suspected 
before  his  time,  far  less  illuminated  (as  now  they  are)  by  beauty 
and  tropical  luxuriance  of  life.  For  instance  —  a  single  instance, 
indeed  one  which  in  itself  is  a  world  of  new  revelation  —  the 
possible  beauty  of  the  female  character  had  not  been  seen  as  in 
a  dream  before  Shakspeare  called  into  perfect  life  the  radiant 
shapes  of  Desdemona,  of  Imogen,  of  Hermione,  of  Perdita,  of 
Ophelia,  of  Miranda,  and  many  others.  The  Una  of  Spenser, 
earlier  by  ten  or  fifteen  years  than  most  of  these,  was  an  ideal- 
ised portrait  of  female  innocence  and  virgin  purity,  but  too 
shadowy  and  unreal  for  a  dramatic  reality.  And  as  to  the  Gre- 
cian classics,  let  not  the  reader  imagine  for  an  instant  that  any 
prototype  in  this  field  of  Shakspearian  power  can  be  looked  for 
there.  The  Antigone  and  the  Electro,  of  the  tragic  poets  are  the 
two  leading  female  characters  that  classical  antiquity  offers  to  our 
respect,  but  assuredly  not  to  our  impassioned  love,  as  disciplined 
and  exalted  in  the  school  of  Shakspeare.  They  challenge  our 
admiration,  severe,  and  even  stern,  as  impersonations  of  filial 
duty,  cleaving  to  the  steps  of  a  desolate  and  afflicted  old  man ; 
or  of  sisterly  affection,  maintaining  the  rights  of  a  brother  under 
circumstances  of  peril,  of  desertion,  and  consequently  of  perfect 
self-reliance.  Iphigenia,  again,  though  not  dramatically  coming 
before  us  in  her  own  person,  but  according  to  the  beautiful  report 
of  a  spectator,  presents  us  with  a  fine  statuesque  model  of  heroic 
fortitude,  and  of  one  whose  young  heart,  even  in  the  very  agonies 


628  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE Y. 

of  her  cruel  immolation,  refused  to  forget,  by  a  single  indecorous 
gesture,  or  so  much  as  a  moment's  neglect  of  her  own  princely 
descent,  that  she  herself  was  "  a  lady  in  the  land."  These  are 
fine  marble  groups,  but  they  are  not  the  warm  breathing  realities 
of  Shakspeare ;  there  is  "  no  speculation  "  in  their  cold  marble 
eyes ;  the  breath  of  life  is  not  in  their  nostrils ;  the  fine  pulses 
of  womanly  sensibilities  are  not  throbbing  in  their  bosoms.  And 
besides  this  immeasurable  difference  between  the  cold  moony 
reflexes  of  life,  as  exhibited  by  the  power  of  Grecian  art,  and  the 
true  sunny  life  of  Shakspeare,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  An- 
tigones,  &c.,  of  the  antique  put  forward  but  one  single  trait  of 
character,  like  the  aloe  with  its  single  blossom :  this  solitary 
feature  is  presented  to  us  as  an  abstraction,  and  as  an  insulated 
quality;  whereas  in  Shakspeare  all  is  presented  in  the  concrete; 
that  is  to  say,  not  brought  forward  in  relief,  as  by  some  effort  of 
an  anatomical  artist,  but  embodied  and  imbedded,  so  to  speak, 
as  by  the  force  of  a  creative  nature,  in  the  complex  system  of  a 
human  life ;  a  life  in  which  all  the  elements  move  and  play 
simultaneously,  and  with  something  more  than  'mere  simultaneity 
or  co-existence,  acting  and  re-acting  each  upon  the  other  —  nay, 
even  acting  by  each  other  and  through  each  other.  In  Shak- 
speare's  characters  is  felt  for  ever  a  real  organic  life,  where  each 
is  for  the  whole  and  in  the  whole,  and  where  the  whole  is  for  each 
and  in  each.  They  only  are  real  incarnations. 

The  Greek  poets  could  not  exhibit  any  approximation  to  female 
character  without  violating  the  truth  of  Grecian  life,  and  shocking 
the  feelings  of  the  audience.  The  drama  with  the  Greeks,  as  with 
us,  though  much  less  than  with  us,  was  a  picture  of  human  life ; 
and  that  which  could  not  occur  in  life  could  not  wisely  be  exhibited 
on  the  stage.  Now,  in  ancient  Greece,  women  were  secluded  from 
the  society  of  men.  The  conventual  sequestration  of  the  ywaiKw- 
vms,  or  female  apartment  of  the  house,  and  the  Mahommedan 
consecration  of  its  threshold  against  the  ingress  of  males,  had  been 
transplanted  from  Asia  into  Greece  thousands  of  years  perhaps 
before  either  convents  or  Mahommed  existed.  Thus  barred  from 


BIOGRAPHIES.  629 

all  open  social  intercourse,  women  could  not  develop  or  express 
any  character  by  word  or  action.  Even  to  have  a  character,  vio- 
lated, to  a  Grecian  mind,  the  ideal  portrait  of  feminine  excellence  ; 
whence,  perhaps,  partly  the  too  generic,  too  little  individualised, 
style  of  Grecian  beauty.  But  prominently  to  express  a  character 
was  impossible  under  the  common  tenor  of  Grecian  life,  unless 
when  high  tragical  catastrophes  transcended  the  decorums  of  that 
tenor,  or  for  a  brief  interval  raised  the  curtain  which  veiled  it. 
Hence  the  subordinate  part  which  women  play  upon  the  Greek 
stage  in  all  but  some  half-dozen  cases.  In  the  paramount  tragedy 
on  that  stage,  the  model  tragedy,  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus  of  Soph- 
ocles, there  is  virtually  no  woman  at  all ;  for  Jocasta  is  a  party  to 
the  story  merely  as  the  dead  Laius  or  the  self-murdered  Sphinx 
was  a  party  —  viz.,  by  her  contributions  to  the  fatalities  of  the 
event,  not  by  anything  she  does  or  says  spontaneously.  In  fact, 
the  Greek  poet,  if  a  wise  poet,  could  not  address  himself  genially 
to  a  task  in  which  he  must  begin  by  shocking  the  sensibilities  of 
his  countrymen.  And  hence  followed,  not  only  the  dearth  of 
female  characters  in  the  Grecian  drama,  but  also  a  second  result 
still  more  favourable  to  the  sense  of  a  new  power  evolved  by  Shak- 
speare.  Whenever  the  common  law  of  Grecian  life  did  give  way, 
it  was,  as  we  have  observed,  to  the  suspending  force  of  some  great 
convulsion  or  tragical  catastrophe.  This  for  a  moment  (like  an 
earthquake  in  a  nunnery)  would  set  at  liberty  even  the  timid,  flut- 
tering Grecian  women,  those  doves  of  the  dove-cot,  and  would  call 
some  of  them  into  action.  But  which  ?  Precisely  those  of  ener- 
getic and  masculine  minds ;  the  timid  and  feminine  would  but 
shrink  the  more  from  public  gaze  and  from  tumult.  Thus  it  hap- 
pened that  such  female  characters  as  were  exhibited  in  Greece 
could  not  but  be  the  harsh  and  the  severe.  If  a  gentle  Ismene 
appeared  for  a  moment  in  contest  with  some  energetic  sister  Anti- 
gone (and  chiefly,  perhaps  by  way  of  drawing  out  the  fiercer  char- 
acter of  that  sister) ,  she  was  soon  dismissed  as  nnfit  for  scenical 
effect.  So  that  not  only  were  female  characters  few,  but,  moreover, 
of  these  few  the  majority  were  but  repetitions  of  masculine  qualities 


630  THOMAS  DE    QUINCE Y. 

in  female  persons.  Female  agency  being  seldom  summoned  on 
the  stage  except  when  it  had  received  a  sort  of  special  dispensation 
from  its  sexual  character,  by  some  terrific  convulsions  of  the  house 
or  the  city,  naturally  it  assumed  the  style  of  action  suited  to  these 
circumstances.  And  hence  it  arose  that  not  woman  as  she  differed 
from  man,  but  woman  as  she  resembled  man  —  woman,  in  short, 
seen  under  circumstances  so  dreadful  as  to  abolish  the  effect  of 
sexual  distinction,  was  the  woman  of  the  Greek  tragedy.  And 
hence  generally  arose  for  Shakspeare  the  wider  field,  and  the  more 
astonishing  by  its  perfect  novelty,  when  he  first  introduced  female 
characters,  not  as  mere  varieties  or  echoes  of  masculine  characters, 
a  Medea  or  Clytemnestra,  or  a  vindictive  Hecuba,  the  mere  tigress 
of  the  tragic  tiger,  but  female  characters  that  had  the  appropriate 
beauty  of  female  nature ;  woman  no  longer  grand,  terrific,  and  re- 
pulsive, but  woman  "after  her  kind"  —  the  other  hemisphere  of 
the  dramatic  world ;  woman  running  through  the  vast  gamut  of 
womanly  loveliness ;  woman  as  emancipated,  exalted,  ennobled, 
under  a  new  law  of  Christian  morality ;  woman  the  sister  and  co- 
equal of  man,  no  longer  his  slave,  his  prisoner,  and  sometimes  his 
rebel.  "  It  is  a  far  cry  to  Loch  Awe  " ;  and  from  the  Athenian 
stage  to  the  stage  of  Shakspeare,  it  may  be  said,  is  a  prodigious 
interval.  True ;  but  prodigious  as  it  is,  there  is  really  nothing 
between  them.  The  Roman  stage,  at  least  the  tragic  stage,  as  is 
well  known,  was  put  out,  as  by  an  extinguisher,  by  the  cruel  amphi- 
theatre, just  as  a  candle  is  made  pale  and  ridiculous  by  daylight. 
Those  who  were  fresh  from  the  real  murders  of  the  bloody  amphi- 
theatre regarded  with  contempt  the  mimic  murders  of  the  stage. 
Stimulation  too  coarse  and  too  intense  had  its  usual  effect  in  mak- 
ing the  sensibilities  callous.  Christian  emperors  arose  at  length, 
who  abolished  the  amphitheatre  in  its  bloodier  features.  But  by 
that  time  the  genius  of  the  tragic  muse  had  long  slept  the  sleep  of 
death  ;  and  that  muse  had  no  resurrection  until  the  age  of  Shak- 
speare. So  that,  notwithstanding  a  gulf  of  nineteen  centuries  and 
upwards  separates  Shakspeare  from  Euripides,  the  last  of  the  sur- 
viving Greek  tragedians,  the  one  is  still  the  nearest  successor  of 


BIOGRAPHIES.  631 

the  other,  just  as  Connaught  and  the  islands  in  Clew  Bay  are  next 
neighbours  to  America,  although  three  thousand  watery  columns, 
each  of  a  cubic  mile  in  dimensions,  divide  them  from  each  other. 
A  second  reason  which  lends  an  emphasis  of  novelty  and  effec- 
tive power  to  Shakspeare's  female  world,  is  a  peculiar  fact  of 
contrast  which  exists  between  that  and  his  corresponding  world 
of  men.  Let  us  explain.  The  purpose  and  the  intention  of  the 
Grecian  stage  was  not  primarily  to  develop  human  character, 
whether  in  men  or  in  women;  human  fates  were  its  object,  great 
tragic  situations  under  the  mighty  control  of  a  vast  cloudy  destiny, 
dimly  descried  at  intervals,  and  brooding  over  human  life  by  mys- 
terious agencies  and  for  mysterious  ends.  Man,  no  longer  the 
representative  of  an  august  will —  man,  the  passion-puppet  of 
fate,  could  not  with  any  effect  display  what  we  call  a  character 
which  is  a  distinction  between  man  and  man,  emanating  originally 
from  the  will,  and  expressing  its  determinations,  moving  under  the 
large  variety  of  human  impulses.  The  will  is  the  central  pivot  of 
character,  and  this  was  obliterated,  thwarted,  cancelled  by  the 
dark  fatalism  which  brooded  over  the  Grecian  stage.  That  ex- 
planation will  sufficiently  clear  up  the  reason  why  marked  or 
complex  variety  of  character  was  slighted  by  the  great  principles 
of  the  Greek  tragedy.  And  every  scholar  who  has  studied  that 
grand  drama  of  Greece  with  feeling  —  that  drama  so  magnificent, 
so  regal,  so  stately  —  and  who  has  thoughtfully  investigated  its 
principles  and  its  difference  from  the  English  drama,  will  acknowl- 
edge that  powerful  and  elaborate  character  —  character,  for  in- 
stance, that  could  employ  the  fiftieth  part  of  that  profound  analysis 
which  has  been  applied  to  Hamlet,  to  Falstaff,  to  Lear,  to  Othello, 
and  applied  by  Mrs.  Jamieson  so  admirably  to  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  Shakspearian  heroines  —  would  have  been  as  much 
wasted,  nay,  would  have  been  defeated,  and  interrupted  the  blind 
agencies  of  fate,  just  in  the  same  way  as  it  would  injure  the  shad- 
owy grandeur  of  a  ghost  to  individualise  it  too  much.  Milton's 
angels  are  slightly  touched,  superficially  touched,  with  differences 
of  character,  but  they  are  such  differences,  so  simple  and  general, 


632  THOMAS  DE   QUINCEY. 

as  are  just  sufficient  to  rescue  them  from  the  reproach  applied  to 
Virgil's  "fortemque  Gyan,  fortemqiie  Cloanthem  "/ 6  just  sufficient 
to  make  them  knowable  apart.  Pliny  speaks  of  painters  who 
painted  in  one  or  two  colours ;  and,  as  respects  the  angelic  char- 
acters, Milton  does  so  —  he  is  monochromatic.  So,  and  for  reasons 
resting  upon  the  same  ultimate  philosophy,  were  the  mighty 
architects  of  the  Greek  tragedy.  They  also  were  monochro- 
matic ;  they  also,  as  to  the  characters  of  their  persons,  painted  in 
one  colour.  And  so  far  there  might  have  been  the  same  novelty 
in  Shakspeare's  men  as  in  his  women.  There  might  have  been, 
but  the  reason  why  there  is  not  must  be  sought  in  the  fact  that 
History,  the  muse  of  History,  had  there  even  been  no  such  muse 
as  Melpomene,  would  have  forced  us  into  an  acquaintance  with 
human  character.  History,  as  the  representative  of  actual  life,  of 
real  man,  gives  us  powerful  delineations  of  character  in  its  chief 
agents  —  that  is,  in  men;  and  therefore  it  is  that  Shakspeare,  the 
absolute  creator  of  female  character,  was  but  the  mightiest  of  all 
painters  with  regard  to  male  character.  Take  a  single  instance. 
The  Antony  of  Shakspeare,  immortal  for  its  execution,  is  found, 
after  all,  as  regards  the  primary  conception,  in  history.  Shak- 
speare's delineation  is  but  the  expansion  of  the  germ  already 
pre-existing,  by  way  of  scattered  fragments,  in  Cicero's  Philippics, 
in  Cicero's  Letters,  in  Appian,  &c.  But  Cleopatra,  equally  fine, 
is  a  pure  creation  of  art.  The  situation  and  the  scenic  circum- 
stances belong  to  history,  but  the  character  belongs  to  Shakspeare. 
In  the  great  world  therefore  of  woman,  as  the  interpreter  of  the 
shifting  phases  and  the  lunar  varieties  of  that  mighty  changeable 
planet,  that  lovely  satellite  of  man,  Shakspeare  stands  not  the  first 
only,  not  the  original  only,  but  is  yet  the  sole  authentic  oracle  of 
truth.  Woman,  therefore,  the  beauty  of  the  female  rnind,  this  is 
one  great  field  of  his  power.  The  supernatural  world,  the  world 
of  apparitions,  that  is  another ;  for  reasons  which  it  would  be  easy 
to  give,  reasons  emanating  from  the  gross  mythology  of  the 
ancients,  no  Grecian,  no  Roman,  could  have  conceived  a  ghost. 

6  VIRGIL,  ALneid,  I.  222.     Read  Cloanthum  for  De  Quincey's  Cloanthem. 


BIOGRAPHIES.  633 

That  shadowy  conception,  the  protesting  apparition,  the  awful 
projection  of  the  human  conscience,  belongs  to  the  Christian 
mind ;  and  in  all  Chr  jtendom,  who,  let  us  ask,  who,  but  Shak- 
speare,  has  found  the  power  for  effectually  working  this  mysterious 
mode  of  being?  In  summoning  back  to  earth  "the  majesty  of 
buried  Denmark,"  how  like  an  awful  necromancer  does  Shak- 
speare  appear  !  All  the  pomps  and  grandeurs  which  religion, 
which  the  grave,  which  the  popular  superstition  had  gathered 
about  the  subject  of  apparitions,  are  here  converted  to  his  pur- 
pose, and  bend  to  one  awful  effect.  The  wormy  grave  brought 
into  antagonism  with  the  scenting  of  the  early  dawn  ;  the  trumpet 
of  resurrection  suggested,  and  again  as  an  antagonist  idea  to  the 
crowing  of  the  cock  (a  bird  ennobled  in  the  Christian  mythus  by 
the  part  he  is  made  to  play  at  the  Crucifixion)  ;  its  starting  "  as 
a  guilty  thing "  placed  in  opposition  to  its  majestic  expression 
of  offended  dignity  when  struck  at  by  the  partisans  of  the  senti- 
nels ;  its  awful  allusions  to  the  secrets  of  its  prison-house ;  its 
ubiquity,  contrasted  with  its  local  presence  ;  its  aerial  substance, 
yet  clothed  in  palpable  armour;  the  heart-shaking  solemnity  of 
its  language,  and  the  appropriate  scenery  of  its  haunt  —  viz.,  the 
ramparts  of  a  capital  fortress,  with  no  witnesses  but  a  few  gentle- 
men mounting  guard  at  the  dead  of  night :  what  a  mist,  what  a 
mirage  of  vapour,  is  here  accumulated,  through  which  the  dread- 
ful being  in  the  centre  looms  upon  us  in  far  larger  proportions 
than  could  have  happened  had  it  been  insulated  and  left  naked  of 
this  circumstantial  pomp  !  In  the  "  Tempest,"  again,  what  new 
modes  of  life,  preternatural,  yet  far  as  the  poles  from  the  spiritual- 
ities of  religion  !  Ariel  in  antithesis  to  Caliban  ! 7  What  is  most 
ethereal  to  what  is  most  animal !  A  phantom  of  air,  an  abstrac- 
tion of  the  dawn  and  of  vesper  sunlights,  a  bodiless  sylph  on  the 
one  hand ;  on  the  other  a  gross  carnal  monster,  like  the  Miltonic 
Asmodai,  "  the  fleshliest  incubus  "  among  the  fiends,  and  yet  so 

7  "  Caliban  has  not  yet  been  thoroughly  fathomed.  For  all  Shakspeare's 
great  creations  are,  like  works  of  nature,  subjects  of  unexhaustible  study."  — 
DE  QUINCEY'S  note. 


634  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE Y. 

far  ennobled  into  interest  by  his  intellectual  power,  and  by  the 
grandeur  of  misanthropy  !  In  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream," 
again,  we  have  the  old  traditional  fairy,  a  lovely  mode  of  preter- 
natural life,  remodified  by  Shakspeare's  eternal  talisman.  Oberon 
and  Titania  remind  us  at  first  glance  of  Ariel ;  they  approach,  but 
how  far  they  recede ;  they  are  like  —  "  like,  but  oh,  how  differ- 
ent ! "  And  in  no  other  exhibition  of  this  dreamy  population  of 
the  moonlight  forests  and  forest-lawns  are  the  circumstantial  pro- 
prieties of  fairy  life  so  exquisitely  imagined,  sustained,  or  ex- 
pressed. The  dialogue  between  Oberon  and  Titania  is,  of  itself 
and  taken  separately  from  its  connection,  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful poetic  scenes  that  literature  affords.  The  witches  in  "  Mac- 
beth "  are  another  variety  of  supernatural  life,  in  which  Shak- 
speare's power  to  enchant  and  disenchant  are  alike  portentous. 
The  circumstances  of  the  blasted  heath,  the  army  at  a  distance, 
the  withered  attire  of  the  mysterious  hags,  and  the  choral  litanies 
of  their  fiendish  Sabbath,  are  as  finely  imagined  in  their  kind  as 
those  which  herald  and  which  surround  the  ghost  in  "  Hamlet." 
There  we  see  the  positive  of  Shakspeare's  superior  power.  But 
now  turn  and  look  to  the  negative.  At  a  time  when  the  trials  of 
witches,  the  royal  book  on  demonology,8  and  popular  superstition 
(all  so  far  useful,  as  they  prepared  a  basis  of  undoubting  faith  for 
the  poet's  serious  use  of  such  agencies)  had  degraded  and  pol- 
luted the  ideas  of  these  mysterious  beings  by  many  mean  associ- 
ations, Shakspeare  does  not  fear  to  employ  them  in  high  tragedy 
(a  tragedy,  moreover,  which,  though  not  the  very  greatest  of  his 
efforts  as  an  intellectual  whole,  nor  as  a  struggle  of  passion,  is 
among  the  greatest  in  any  view,  and  positively  the  greatest  for 
scenical  grandeur,  and  in  that  respect  makes  the  nearest  approach 
of  all  English  tragedies  to  the  Grecian  model)  ;  he  does  not  fear 
to  introduce,  for  the  same  appalling  effect  as  that  for  which 
yEschylus  introduced  the  Eumenides,  a  triad  of  old  women, 
concerning  whom  an  English  wit  has  remarked  this  grotesque 
peculiarity  in  the  popular  creed  of  that  day,  that  although  potent 
8  The  Demonology  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland. 


BIOGRAPHIES.  635 

over  winds  and  storms,  in  league  with  powers  of  darkness,  they 
yet  stood  in  awe  of  the  constable ;  —  yet,  relying  on  his  own 
supreme  power  to  disenchant  as  well  as  to  enchant,  to  create  and 
to  uncreate,  he  mixes  these  women  and  their  dark  machineries 
with  the  power  of  armies,  with  the  agencies  of  kings,  and  the 
fortunes  of  martial  kingdoms.  Such  was  the  sovereignty  of  this 
poet,  so  mighty  its  compass  ! 

A  third  fund  of  Shakspeare's  peculiar  power  lies  in  his  teeming 
fertility  of  fine  thoughts  and  sentiments.  From  his  works  alone 
might  be  gathered  a  golden  bead-roll  of  thoughts  the  deepest, 
subtlest,  most  pathetic,  and  yet  most  catholic  and  universally 
intelligible ;  the  most  characteristic  also,  and  appropriate  to  the 
particular  person,  the  situation,  and  the  case ;  yet  at  the  same 
time  applicable  to  the  circumstances  of  every  human  being  under 
all  the  accidents  of  life  and  all  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  But  this 
subject  offers  so  vast  a  field  of  observation,  it  being  so  eminently 
the  prerogative  of  Shakspeare  to  have  thought  more  finely  and 
more  extensively  than  all  other  poets  combined,  that  we  cannot 
wrong  the  dignity  of  such  a  theme  by  doing  more,  in  our  narrow 
limits,  than  simply  noticing  it  as  one  of  the  emblazonries  upon 
Shakspeare's  shield. 

Fourthly,  we  shall  indicate,  (and,  as  in  the  last  case,  barely 
indicate,  without  attempting  in  so  vast  a  field  to  offer  any  inade- 
quate illustrations)  one  mode  of  Shakspeare's  dramatic  excellence 
which  hitherto  has  not  attracted  any  special  or  separate  notice. 
We  allude  to  the  forms  of  life  and  natural  human  passion  as 
apparent  in  the  structure  of  his  dialogue.  Among  the  many 
defects  and  infirmities  of  the  French  and  of  the  Italian  drama, 
indeed  we  may  say  of  the  Greek,  the  dialogue  proceeds  always 
by  independent  speeches,  replying  indeed  to  each  other,  but  never 
modified  in  its  several  openings  by  the 'momentary  effect  of  its 
several  terminal  forms  immediately  preceding.  Now,  in  Shak- 
speare, who  first  set  an  example  of  that  most  important  innovation, 
in  all  his  impassioned  dialogues  each  reply  or  rejoinder  seems  the 
mere  rebound  of  the  previous  speech.  Every  form  of  natural 


636  THOMAS  DE   QUINCE Y. 

interruption  breaking  through  "the  restraints  of  ceremony  under 
the  impulses  of  tempestuous  passion ;  every  form  of  hasty  inter- 
rogative, ardent  reiteration  when  a  question  has  been  evaded  ; 
every  form  of  scornful  repetition  of  the  hostile  words ;  every 
impatient  continuation  of  the  hostile  statement ;  in  short,  all 
modes  and  formulae  by  which  anger,  hurry,  fretfulness,  scorn, 
impatience,  or  excitement  under  any  movement  whatever,  can 
disturb  or  modify  or  dislocate  the  formal  bookish  style  of  com- 
mencement, —  these  are  as  rife  in  Shakspeare's  dialogue  as  in  life 
itself;  and  how  much  vivacity,  how  profound  a  verisimilitude, 
they  add  to  the  scenic  effect  as  an  imitation  of  human  passion  and 
real  life,  we  need  not  say.  A  volume  might  be  written  illustrating 
the  vast  varieties  of  Shakspeare's  art  and  power  in  this  one  field 
of  improvement ;  another  volume  might  be  dedicated  to  the 
exposure  of  the  lifeless  and  unnatural  result  from  the  opposite 
practice  in  the  foreign  stages  of  France  and  Italy.  And  we  may 
truly  say,  that  were  Shakspeare  distinguished  from  them  by  this 
single  feature  of  nature  and  propriety,  he  would  on  that  account 
alone  have  merited  a  great  immortality. 


XXXII. 

THOMAS    BABINGTON    MACAULAY. 

(1800-1859.) 

CRITICAL   AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS. 
THE  COMIC  DRAMATISTS  OF  THE  RESTORATION.1 

[Written  in  1840.] 

WE  have  a  kindness  for  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt.  We  form  our  judg- 
ment of  him,  indeed,  only  from  events  of  universal  notoriety,  from 
his  own  works,  and  from  the  works  of  other  writers,  who  have 
generally  abused  him  in  the  most  rancorous  manner.  But,  unless 
we  are  greatly  mistaken,  he  is  a  very  clever,  a  very  honest,  and 
a  very  good-natured  man.  We  can  clearly  discern,  together  with 
many  merits,  many  faults  both  in  his  writings  and  in  his  conduct. 
But  we  really  think  that  there  is  hardly  a  man  living  whose  merits 
have  been  so  grudgingly  allowed,  and  whose  faults  have  been  so 
cruelly  expiated. 

In  some  respects  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  is  excellently  qualified  for 
the  task  which  he  has  now  undertaken.  His  style,  in  spite  of  its 
mannerism,  nay,  partly  by  reason  of  its  mannerism,  is  well  suited 
for  light,  garrulous,  desultory  ana,  half  critical,  half  biographical. 
We  do  not  always  agree  with  his  literary  judgments ;  but  we  find 
in  him  what  is  very  rare  in  our  time,  the  power  of  justly  appreci- 
ating and  heartily  enjoying  good  things  of  very  different  kinds. 
He  can  adore  Shakspeare  and  Spenser  without  denying  poetical 

1  From  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  January,  1841. —  The  Dramatic  Works 
of  Wycherley,  Congreve,  Vanbrugh,  and  Farquhar,  -with  Biographical  and 
Critical  Notices.  By  Leigh  Hunt.  8vo.  London:  1840. 

637 


638  THOMAS  BASING  TON  MA  CA  ULA  Y. 

genius  to  the  author  of  Alexander's  Feast,  or  fine  observation,  rich 
fancy,  and  exquisite  humour  to  him  who  imagined  Will  Honey- 
comb and  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.  He  has  paid  particular  atten- 
tion to  the  history  of  the  English  drama,  from  the  age  of  Elizabeth 
down  to  our  own  time,  and  has  every  right  to  be  heard  with 
respect  on  that  subject. 

The  plays  to  which  he  now  acts  as  introducer  are,  with  few 
exceptions,  such  as,  in  the  opinion  of  many  very  respectable 
people,  ought  not  to  be  reprinted.  In  this  opinion  we  can  by  no 
means  concur.  We  cannot  wish  that  any  work  or  class  of  works 
which  has  exercised  a  great  influence  on  the  human  mind,  and 
which  illustrates  the  character  of  an  important  epoch  in  letters, 
politics,  and  morals,  should  disappear  from  the  world.  If  we  err 
in  this  matter,  we  err  with  the  gravest  men  and  bodies  of  men  in 
the  empire,  and  especially  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  with 
the  great  schools  of  learning  which  are  connected  with  her.  The 
whole  liberal  education  of  our  countrymen  is  conducted  on  the 
principle,  that  no  book  which  is  valuable,  either  by  reason  of 
the  excellence  of  its  style,  or  by  reason  of  the  light  which  it  throws 
on  the  history,  polity,  and  manners  of  nations,  should  be  withheld 
from  the  student  on  account  of  its  impurity.  The  Athenian  Come- 
dies, in  which  there  are  scarcely  a  hundred  lines  together  without 
some  passage  of  which  Rochester  would  have  been  ashamed,  have 
been  reprinted  at  the  Pitt  Press,  and  the  Clarendon  Press,  under 
the  direction  of  Syndics  and  delegates  appointed  by  the  Univer- 
sities, and  have  been  illustrated  with  notes  by  reverend,  very 
reverend,  and  right  reverend  commentators.  Every  year  the 
most  distinguished  young  men  in  the  kingdom  are  examined  by 
bishops  and  professors  of  divinity  in  such  works  as  the  Lysistrata 
of  Aristophanes  and  the  Sixth  Satire  of  Juvenal.  There  is  cer- 
tainly something  a  little  ludicrous  in  the  idea  of  a  conclave  of 
venerable  fathers  of  the  church  praising  and  rewarding  a  lad  on 
account  of  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  writings  compared  with 
which  the  loosest  tale  in  Prior  is  modest.  But,  for  our  own  part, 
we  have  no  doubt  that  the  greatest  societies  which  direct  the 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  639 

education  of  the  English  gentry  have  herein  judged  wisely.  It  is 
unquestionable  that  an  extensive  acquaintance  with  ancient  litera- 
ture enlarges  and  enriches  the  mind.  It  is  unquestionable  that  a 
man  whose  mind  has  been  thus  enlarged  and  enriched  is  likely 
to  be  far  more  useful  to  the  state  and  to  the  church  than  one  who 
is  unskilled,  or  little  skilled,  in  classical  learning.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that,  in  a  world  so  full  of 
temptation  as  this,  any  gentleman  whose  life  would  have  been 
virtuous  if  he  had  not  read  Aristophanes  and  Juvenal  will  be  made 
vicious  by  reading  them.  A  man  who,  exposed  to  all  the  influ- 
ences of  such  a  state  of  society  as  that  in  which  we  live,  is  yet 
afraid  of  exposing  himself  to  the  influences  of  a  few  Greek  or 
Latin  verses,  acts,  we  think,  much  like  the  felon  who  begged  the 
sheriffs  to  let  him  have  an  umbrella  held  over  his  head  from  the 
door  of  Newgate  to  the  gallows,  because  it  was  a  drizzling  morn- 
ing, and  he  was  apt  to  take  cold. 

The  virtue  which  the  world  wants  is  a  healthful  virtue,  not  a 
valetudinarian  virtue,  a  virtue  which  can  expose  itself  to  the  risks 
inseparable  from  all  spirited  exertion,  not  a  virtue  which  keeps 
out  of  the  common  air  for  fear  of  infection,  and  eschews  the 
common  food  as  too  stimulating.  It  would  be  indeed  absurd  to 
attempt  to  keep  men  from  acquiring  those  qualifications  which 
fit  them  to  play  their  part  in  life  with  honour  to  themselves  and 
advantage  to  their  country,  for  the  sake  of  preserving  a  delicacy 
which  cannot  be  preserved,  a  delicacy  which  a  walk  from  West- 
minster to  the  Temple  is  sufficient  to  destroy. 

But  we  should  be  justly  chargeable  with  gross  inconsistency  if, 
while  we  defend  the  policy  which  invites  the  youth  of  our  country 
to  study  such  writers  as  Theocritus  and  Catullus,  we  were  to  set 
up  a  cry  against  a  new  edition  of  The  Country  Wife  or  The  Way 
of  the  World.  The  immoral  English  writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century  are  indeed  much  less  excusable  than  those  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  But  the  worst  English  writings  of  the  seventeenth  century 
are  decent,  compared  with  much  that  has  been  bequeathed  to  us 
by  Greece  and  Rome.  Plato,  we  have  little  doubt,  was  a  much 


640  THOMAS  BAB  ING  TON  MA  CA  ULA  Y. 

better  man  than  Sir  George  Etherege.  But  Plato  has  written 
things  at  which  Sir  George  Etherege  would  have  shuddered. 
Buckhurst  and  Sedley,  even  in  those  wild  orgies  at  the  Cock  in 
Bow  Street  for  which  they  were  pelted  by  the  rabble  and  fined 
by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  would  never  have  dared  to  hold 
such  discourse  as  passed  between  Socrates  and  Phaedrus  on  that 
fine  summer  day  under  the  plane-tree,  while  the  fountain  warbled 
at  their  feet,  and  the  cicadas  chirped  overhead.  If  it  be,  as  we 
think  it  is,  desirable  that  an  English  gentleman  should  be  well 
informed  touching  the  government  and  the  manners  of  little  com- 
monwealths which  both  in  place  and  time  are  far  removed  from 
us,  whose  independence  has  been  more  than  two  thousand  years 
extinguished,  whose  language  has  not  been  spoken  for  ages,  and 
whose  ancient  magnificence  is  attested  only  by  a  few  broken 
columns  and  friezes,  much  more  must  it  be  desirable  that  he 
should  be  intimately  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  public 
mind  of  his  own  country,  and  with  the  causes,  the  nature,  and  the 
extent  of  those  revolutions  of  opinion  and  feeling  which,  during 
the  last  two  centuries,  have  alternately  raised  and  depressed  the 
standard  of  our  national  morality.  And  knowledge  of  this  sort  is 
to  be  very  sparingly  gleaned  from  Parliamentary  debates,  from 
state  papers,  and  from  the  works  of  grave  historians.  It  must 
either  not  be  acquired  at  all,  or  it  niust  be  acquired  by  the  perusal 
of  the  light  literature  which  has  at  various  periods  been  fashion- 
able. We  are  therefore  by  no  means  disposed  to  condemn  this 
publication,  though  we  certainly  cannot  recommend  the  handsome 
volume  before  us  as  an  appropriate  Christmas  present  for  young 
ladies. 

We  have  said  that  we  think  the  present  publication  perfectly 
justifiable.  But  we  can  by  no  means  agree  with  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt, 
who  seems  to  hold  that  there  is  little  or  no  ground  for  the  charge 
of  immorality  so  often  brought  against  the  literature  of  the  Resto- 
ration. We  do  not  blame  him  for  not  bringing  to  the  judgment- 
seat  the  merciless  rigour  of  Lord  Angelo ;  but  we  really  think  that 
such  flagitious  and  impudent  offenders  as  those  who  are  now  at 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  641 

the  bar  deserved  at  least  the  gentle  rebuke  of  Escalus.  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt  treats  the  whole  matter  a  little  too  much  in  the  easy  style  of 
Lucio;  and  perhaps  his  exceeding  lenity  disposes  us  to  be  some- 
what too  severe. 

And  yet  it  is  not  easy  to  be  too  severe.  For  in  truth  this  part 
of  our  literature  is  a  disgrace  to  our  language  and  our  national 
character.  It  is  clever,  indeed,  and  very  entertaining ;  but  it  is, 
in  the  most  emphatic  sense  of  the  words,  "  earthly,  sensual,  devil- 
ish." Its  indecency,  though  perpetually  such  as  is  condemned 
not  less  by  the  rules  of  good  taste  than  by  those  of  morality,  is 
not,  in  our  opinion,  so  disgraceful  a  fault  as  its  singularly  inhuman 
spirit.  We  have  here  Belial,  not  as  when  he  inspired  Ovid  and 
Ariosto,  "  graceful  and  humane,"  but  with  the  iron  eye  and  cruel 
sneer  of  Mephistopheles.  We  find  ourselves  in  a  world,  in  which 
the  ladies  are  like  very  profligate,  impudent  and  unfeeling  men, 
and  in  which  the  men  are  too  bad  for  any  place  but  Pandaemo- 
nium  or  Norfolk  Island.  We  are  surrounded  by  foreheads  of 
bronze,  hearts  like  the  nether  millstone,  and  tongues  set  on  fire 
of  hell. 

Dryden  defended  or  excused  his  own  offences  and  those  of  his 
contemporaries  by  pleading  the  example  of  the  earlier  English 
dramatists ;  and  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  seems  to  think  that  there  is 
force  in  the  plea.  We  altogether  differ  from  this  opinion.  The 
crime  charged  is  not  mere  coarseness  of  expression.  The  terms 
which  are  delicate  in  one  age  become  gross  in  the  next.  The 
diction  of  the  English  version  of  the  Pentateuch  is  sometimes 
such  as  Addison  would  not  have  ventured  to  imitate ;  and  Addi- 
son,  the  standard  of  moral  purity  in  his  own  age,  used  many 
phrases  which  are  now  proscribed.  Whether  a  thing  shall  be 
designated  by  a  plain  noun  substantive  or  by  a  circumlocution  is 
mere  matter  of  fashion.  Morality  is  not  at  all  interested  in  the 
question.  But  morality  is  deeply  interested  in  this,  that  what  is 
immoral  shall  not  be  presented  to  the  imagination  of  the  young 
and  susceptible  in  constant  connection  with  what  is  attractive. 
For  every  person  who  has  observed  the  operation  of  the  law  of 


642  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

association  in  his  own  mind  and  in  the  minds  of  others  knows  that 
whatever  is  constantly  presented  to  the  imagination  in  connection 
with  what  is  attractive  will  itself  become  attractive.  There  is 
undoubtedly  a  great  deal  of  indelicate  writing  in  Fletcher  and 
Massinger,  and  more  than  might  be  wished  even  in  Ben  Jonson 
and  Shakspeare,  who  are  comparatively  pure.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  trace  in  their  plays  any  systematic  attempt  to  associate  vice 
with  those  things  which  men  value  most  and  desire  most,  and 
virtue  with  every  thing  ridiculous  and  degrading.  And  such  a 
systematic  attempt  we  find  in  the  whole  dramatic  literature  of  the 
generation  which  followed  the  return  of  Charles  the  Second.2  .... 

Mr.  Charles  Lamb,  indeed,  attempted  to  set  up  a  defence  for 
this  way  of  writing.  The  dramatists  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century  are  not,  according  to  him,  to  be  tried  by  the 
standard  of  morality  which  exists,  and  ought  to  exist  in  real  life. 
Their  world  is  a  conventional  world.  Their  heroes  and  heroines 
belong,  not  to  England,  not  to  Christendom,  but  to  an  Utopia  of 
gallantry,  to  a  Fairyland,  where  the  Bible  and  Burn's  Justice  are 
unknown,  where  a  prank  which  on  this  earth  would  be  rewarded 
with  the  pillory  is  merely  matter  for  a  peal  of  elvish  laughter.  A 
real  Horner,  a  real  Careless,  would,  it  is  admitted,  be  exceedingly 
bad  men.  But  to  predicate  morality  or  immorality  of  the  Horner 
of  Wycherley  and  the  Careless  of  Congreve  is  as  absurd  as  it 
would  be  to  arraign  a  sleeper  for  his  dreams.  "  They  belong  to 
the  regions  of  pure  comedy,  where  no  cold  moral  reigns.  When 
we  are  among  them  we  are  among  a  chaotic  people.  We  are 
not  to  judge  them  by  our  usages.  No  reverend  institutions  are 
insulted  by  their  proceedings,  for  they  have  none  among  them. 
No  peace  of  families  is  violated,  for  no  family  ties  exist  among 
them.  There  is  neither  right  nor  wrong,  gratitude  or  its  opposite, 
claim  or  duty,  paternity  or  sonship." 

This  is,  we  believe,  a  fair  summary  of  Mr.  Lamb's  doctrine. 
We  are  sure  that  we  do  not  wish  to  represent  him  unfairly.  For 

2  MACAULAY  illustrates  his  statements  by  reference  to  characters  in  the 
plays  of  Dryden,  Wycherley,  Vanbrugh,  Farquhar,  and  Congreve. 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  643 

we  admire  his  genius ;  we  love  the  kind  nature  which  appears  in 
all  his  writings ;  and  we  cherish  his  memory  as  much  as  if  we  had 
known  him  personally.  But  we  must  plainly  say  that  his  argu- 
ment, though  ingenious,  is  altogether  sophistical. 

Of  course  we  perfectly  understand  that  it  is  possible  for  a  writer 
to  create  a  conventional  world  in  which  things  forbidden  by  the 
Decalogue  and  the  Statute  Book  shall  be  lawful,  and  yet  that  the 
exhibition  may  be  harmless,  or  even  edifying.  For  example,  we 
suppose  that  the  most  austere  critics  would  not  accuse  Fenelon 
of  impiety  and  immorality  on  account  of  his  Telemachus  and  his 
Dialogues  of  the  Dead.  In  Telemachus  and  the  Dialogues  of  the 
Dead  we  have  a  false  religion,  and  consequently  a  morality  which 
is  in  some  points  incorrect.  We  have  a  right  and  a  wrong  differ- 
ing from  the  right  and  the  wrong  of  real  life.  It  is  represented 
as  the  first  duty  of  men  to  pay  honour  to  Jove  and  Minerva. 
Philocles,  who  employs  his  leisure  in  making  graven  images  of 
these  deities,  is  extolled  for  his  piety  in  a  way  which  contrasts 
singularly  with  the  expressions  of  Isaiah  on  the  same  subject. 
The  dead  are  judged  by  Minos,  and  rewarded  with  lasting  happi- 
ness for  actions  which  Fenelon  would  have  been  the  first  to  pro- 
nounce splendid  sins.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Southey's 
Mahommedan  and  Hindoo  heroes  and  heroines.  In  Thalaba,  to 
speak  in  derogation  of  the  Arabian  impostor  is  blasphemy  :  to 
drink  wine  is  a  crime  :  to  perform  ablutions  and  to  pay  honour 
to  the  holy  cities  are  works  of  merit.  In  the  Curse  of  Kehama, 
Kailyal  is  commended  for  her  devotion  to  the  statue  of  Mariataly, 
the  goddess  of  the  poor.  But  certainly  no  person  will  accuse 
Mr.  Southey  of  having  promoted  or  intended  to  promote  either 
Islamism  or  Brahminism. 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  the  conventional  worlds  of  Fenelon  and 
Mr.  Southey  are  unobjectionable.  In  the  first  place,  they  are 
utterly  unlike  the  real  world  in  which  we  live.  The  state  of 
society,  the  laws  even  of  the  physical  world,  are  so  different  from 
those  with  which  we  are  familiar,  that  we  cannot  be  shocked  at 
finding  the  morality  also  very  different.  But  in  truth  the  morality 


644  THOMA  S  BAB  ING  TON  MA  CA  ULA  Y. 

of  these  conventional  worlds  differs  from  the  morality  of  the  real 
world  only  in  points  where  there  is  no  danger  that  the  real  world 
will  ever  go  wrong.  The  generosity  and  docility  of  Telemachus, 
the  fortitude,  the  modesty,  the  filial  tenderness  of  Kailyal,  are 
virtues  of  all  ages  and  nations.  And  there  was  very  little  danger 
that  the  Dauphin  would  worship  Minerva,  or  that  an  English 
damsel  would  dance,  with  a  bucket  on  her  head,  before  the  statue 
of  Mariataly. 

The  case  is  widely  different  with  what  Mr.  Charles  Lamb  calls 
the  conventional  world  of  Wycherley  and  Congreve.  Here  the 
garb,  the  manners,  the  topics  of  conversation  are  those  of  the  real 
town  and  of  the  passing  day.  The  hero  is  in  all  superficial 
accomplishments  exactly  the  fine  gentleman  whom  every  youth 
in  the  pit  would  gladly  resemble.  The  heroine  is  the  fine  lady 
whom  every  youth  in  the  pit  would  gladly  marry.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  some  place  which  is  as  well  known  to  the  audience  as  their 
own  houses,  in  St.  James's  Park,  or  Hyde  Park,  or  Westminster 
Hall.  The  lawyer  bustles  about  with  his  bag,  between  the  Com- 
mon Pleas  and  the  Exchequer.  The  Peer  calls  for  his  carriage 
to  go  to  the  House  of  Lords  on  a  private  bill.  A  hundred  little 
touches  are  employed  to  make  the  fictitious  world  appear  like 
the  actual  world.  And  the  immorality  is  of  a  sort  which  never 
can  be  out  of  date,  and  which  all  the  force  of  religion,  law,  and 
public  opinion  united  can  but  imperfectly  restrain. 

In  the  name  of  art,  as  well  as  in  the  name  of  virtue,  we  protest 
against  the  principle  that  the  world  of  pure  comedy  is  one  into 
which  no  moral  enters.  If  comedy  be  an  imitation,  under  what- 
ever conventions,  of  real  life,  how  is  it  possible  that  it  can  have 
no  reference  to  the  great  rule  which  directs  life,  and  to  feelings 
which  are  called  forth  by  every  incident  of  life?  If  what  Mr. 
Charles  Lamb  says  were  correct,  the  inference  would  be  that  these 
dramatists  did  not  in  the  least  understand  the  very  first  principles 
of  their  craft.  Pure  landscape-painting  into  which  no  light  or 
shade  enters,  pure  portrait-painting  into  which  no  expression 
enters,  are  phrases  less  at  variance  with  sound  criticism  than  pure 
comedy  into  which  no  moral  enters. 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS,  645 

But  it  is  not  the  fact  that  the  world  of  these  dramatists  is  a 
world  into  which  no  moral  enters.  Morality  constantly  enters  into 
that  world,  a  sound  morality,  and  an  unsound  morality ;  the  sound 
morality  to  be  insulted,  derided,  associated  with  every  thing  mean 
and  hateful ;  the  unsound  morality  to  be  set  off  to  every  advan- 
tage, and  inculcated  by  all  methods,  direct  and  indirect.  It  is 
not  the  fact  that  none  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  conventional  world 
feel  reverence  for  sacred  institutions  and  family  ties.  Fondlewife, 
Pinchwife,  every  person  in  short  of  narrow  understanding  and  dis- 
gusting manners,  expresses  that  reverence  strongly.  The  heroes 
and  heroines,  too,  have  a  moral  code  of  their  own,  an  exceedingly 
bad  one,  but  not,  as  Mr.  Charles  Lamb  seems  to  think,  a  code 
existing  only  in  the  imagination  of  dramatists.  It  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  code  actually  received  and  obeyed  by  great  numbers  of 
people.  We  need  not  go  to  Utopia  or  Fairyland  to  find  them. 
They  are  near  at  hand.  Every  night  some  of  them  cheat  at  the 
hells  in  the  Quadrant,  and  others  pace  the  Piazza,  in  Covent 
Garden.  Without  flying  to  Nephelococcygia*  or  to  the  Court  of 
Queen  Mab,  we  can  meet  with  sharpers,  bullies,  hard-hearted 
impudent  debauchees,  and  women  worthy  of  such  paramours. 
The  morality  of  The  Country  Wife  and  The  Old  Bachelor  is  the 
morality,  not,  as  Mr.  Charles  Lamb  maintains,  of  an  unreal  world, 
but  of  a  world  which  is  a  great  deal  too  real.  It  is  the  morality, 
not  of  a  chaotic  people,  but  of  low  town-rakes,  and  of  those  ladies 
whom  the  newspapers  call  "  dashing  Cyprians."  And  the  ques- 
tion is  simply  this,  whether  a  man  of  genius  who  constantly  and 
systematically  endeavours  to  make  this  sort  of  character  attractive, 
by  uniting  it  with  beauty,  grace,  dignity,  spirit,  a  high  social  posi- 
tion, popularity,  literature,  wit,  taste,  knowledge  of  the  world, 
brilliant  success  in  every  undertaking,  does  or  does  not  make  an 
ill  use  of  his  powers.  We  own  that  we  are  unable  to  understand 
how  this  question  can  be  answered  in  any  way  but  one. 

It  must,  indeed,  be  acknowledged,  in  justice  to  the  writers  of 
whom  we  have  spoken  thus  severely,  that  they  were,  to  a  great 
extent,  the  creatures  of  their  age.  And  if  it  be  asked  why  that 
*  Cloudctickootown.  — ARISTOPHANES,  Birds,  819.  See  Wheeler. 


646  .  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MA  CAUL  AY. 

age  encouraged  immorality  which  no  other  age  would  have  toler- 
ated, we  have  no  hesitation  in  answering  that  this  great  depra- 
vation of  the  national  taste  was  the  effect  of  the  prevalence  of 
Puritanism  under  the  Commonwealth. 

To  punish  public  outrages  on  morals  and  religion  is  unquestion- 
ably within  the  competence  of  rulers.  But  when  a  government, 
not  content  with  requiring  decency,  requires  sanctity,  it  oversteps 
the  bounds  which  mark  its  proper  functions.  And  it  may  be  laid 
down  as  a  universal  rule  that  a  government  which  attempts  more 
than  it  ought  will  perform  less.  A  lawgiver  who,  in  order  to 
protect  distressed  borrowers,  limits  the  rate  of  interest,  either 
makes  it  impossible  for  the  objects  of  his  care  to  borrow  at  all, 
or  places  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  worst  class  of  usurers.  A 
lawgiver  who,  from  tenderness  for  labouring  men,  fixes  the  hours 
of  their  work  and  the  amount  of  their  wages,  is  certain  to  make 
them  far  more  wretched  than  he  found  them.  And  so  a  govern- 
ment which,  not  content  with  repressing  scandalous  excesses, 
demands  from  its  subjects  fervent  and  austere  piety,  will  soon 
discover  that,  while  attempting  to  render  an  impossible  service  to 
the  cause  of  virtue,  it  has  in  truth  only  promoted  vice. 

For  what  are  the  means  by  which  a  government  can  effect  its 
ends  ?  Two  only,  reward  and  punishment ;  powerful  means, 
indeed,  for  influencing  the  exterior  act,  but  altogether  impotent 
for  the  purpose  of  touching  the  heart.  A  public  functionary  who 
is  told  that  he  will  be  promoted  if  he  is  a  devout  Catholic,  and 
turned  out  of  his  place  if  he  is  not,  will  probably  go  to  mass 
every  morning,  exclude  meat  from  his  table  on  Fridays,  shrive 
himself  regularly,  and  perhaps  let  his  superiors  know  that  he 
wears  a  hair  shirt  next  his  skin.  Under  a  Puritan  government,  a 
person  who  is  apprised  that  piety  is  essential  to  thriving  in  the 
world  will  be  strict  in  the  observance  of  the  Sunday,  or,  as  he  will 
call  it,  Sabbath,  and  will  avoid  a  theatre  as  if  it  were  plague- 
stricken.  Such  a  show  of  religion  as  this  the  hope  of  gain  and 
the  fear  of  loss  will  produce,  at  a  week's  notice,  in  any  abundance 
which  a  government  may  require.  But  under  this  show,  sensu- 


CRITICAL    AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  647 

ality,  ambition,  avarice,  and  hatred  retain  unimpaired  power,  and 
the  seeming  convert  has  only  added  to  the  vices  of  a  man  of  the 
world  all  the  still  darker  vices  which  are  engendered  by  the  con- 
stant practice  of  dissimulation.  The  truth  cannot  be  long  con- 
cealed. The  public  discovers  that  the  grave  persons  who  are 
proposed  to  it  as  patterns  are  more  utterly  destitute  of  moral 
principle  and  of  moral  sensibility  than  avowed  libertines.  It  sees 
that  these  Pharisees  are  farther  removed  from  real  goodness  than 
publicans  and  harlots.  And,  as  usual,  it  rushes  to  the  extreme 
opposite  to  that  which  it  quits.  It  considers  a  high  religious  pro- 
fession as  a  sure  mark  of  meanness  and  depravity.  On  the  very 
first  day  on  which  the  restraint  of  fear  is  taken  away,  and  on 
which  men  can  venture  to  say  what  they  think,  a  frightful  peal  of 
blasphemy  and  ribaldry  proclaims  that  the  short-sighted  policy 
which  aimed  at  making  a  nation  of  saints  has  made  a  nation  of 
scoffers. 

It  was  thus  in  France  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  in  his  old  age  became  religious ; 
he  determined  that  his  subjects  should  be  religious  too ;  he 
shrugged  his  shoulders  and  knitted  his  brows  if  he  observed  at 
his  levee  or  near  his  dinner-table  any  gentleman  who  neglected 
the  duties  enjoined  by  the  church,  and  rewarded  piety  with  blue 
ribands,  invitations  to  Marli,  governments,  pensions,  and  regi- 
ments. Forthwith  Versailles  became,  in  every  thing  but  dress,  a 
convent.  The  pulpits  and  confessionals  were  surrounded  by 
swords  and  embroidery.  The  Marshals  of  France  were  much  in 
prayer;  and  there  was  hardly  one  among  the  Dukes  and  Peers 
who  did  not  carry  good  little  books  in  his  pocket,  fast  during 
Lent,  and  communicate  at  Easter.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who 
had  a  great  share  in  the  blessed  work,  boasted  that  devotion  had 
become  quite  the  fashion.  A  fashion  indeed  it  was ;  and  like  a 
fashion  it  passed  away.  No  sooner  had  the  old  king  been  carried 
to  St.  Denis  than  the  whole  court  unmasked.  Every  man  has- 
tened to  indemnify  himself,  by  the  excess  of  licentiousness  and 
impudence,  for  years  of  mortification.  The  same  persons  who, 


648  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MAC  A  UL  AY. 

a  few  months  before,  with  meek  voices  and  demure  looks,  had 
consulted  divines  about  the  state  of  their  souls,  now  surrounded  the 
midnight  table  where,  amidst  the  bounding  of  champagne  corks,  a 
drunken  prince,  enthroned  between  Dubois  and  Madame  de  Par- 
abere,  hiccoughed  out  atheistical  arguments  and  obscene  jests. 
The  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  had  been  a 
time  of  license ;  but  the  most  dissolute  men  of  that  generation 
would  have  blushed  at  the  orgies  of  the  Regency. 

It  was  the  same  with  our  fathers  in  the  time  of  the  Great  Civil 
War.  We  are  by  no  means  unmindful  of  the  great  debt  which 
mankind  owes  to  the  Puritans  of  that  time,  the  deliverers  of 
England,  the  founders  of  the  American  Commonwealths.  But  in 
the  day  of  their  power,  those  men  committed  one  great  fault, 
which  left  deep  and  lasting  traces  in  the  national  character  and 
manners.  They  mistook  the  end  and  overrated  the  force  of  gov- 
ernment. They  determined,  not  merely  to  protect  religion  and 
public  morals  from  insult,  an  object  for  which  the  civil  sword,  in 
discreet  hands,  may  be  beneficially  employed,  but  to  make  the 
people  committed  to  their  rule  truly  devout.  Yet,  if  they  had 
only  reflected  on  events  which  they  had  themselves  witnessed  and 
in  which  they  had  themselves  borne  a  great  part,  they  would  have 
seen  what  was  likely  to  be  the  result  of  their  enterprise.  They 
had  lived  under  a  government  which,  during  a  long  course  of 
years,  did  all  that  could  be  done,  by  lavish  bounty  and  by  rigorous 
punishment,  to  enforce  conformity  to  the  doctrine  and  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  England.  No  person  suspected  of  hostility  to 
that  Church  had  the  smallest  chance  of  obtaining  favour  at  the 
court  of  Charles.  Avowed  dissent  was  punished  by  imprison- 
ment, by  ignominious  exposure,  by  cruel  mutilations,  and  by  ruin- 
ous fines.  And  the  event  had  been  that  the  Church  had  fallen,  and 
had,  in  its  fall,  dragged  down  with  it  a  monarchy  which  had  stood 
six  hundred  years.  The  Puritan  might  have  learned,  if  from 
nothing  else,  yet  from  his  own  recent  victory,  that  governments 
which  attempt  things  beyond  their  reach  are  likely  not  merely  to 
fail,  but  to  produce  an  effect  directly  the  opposite  of  that  which 
they  contemplate  as  desirable. 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  649 

All  this  was  overlooked.  The  saints  were  to  inherit  the  earth. 
The  theatres  were  closed.  The  fine  arts  were  placed  under 
absurd  restraints.  Vices  which  had  never  before  been  even  mis- 
demeanors were  made  capital  felonies.  It  was  solemnly  resolved 
by  Parliament  "  that  no  person  shall  be  employed  but  such  as  the 
House  shall  be  satisfied  of  his  real  godliness."  The  pious  assem- 
bly had  a  Bible  lying  on  the  table  for  reference.  If  they  had 
consulted  it  they  might  have  learned  that  the  wheat  and  the  tares 
grow  together  inseparably,  and  must  either  be  spared  together  or 
rooted  up  together.  To  know  whether  a  man  was  really  godly 
was  impossible.  But  it  was  easy  to  know  whether  he  had  a  plain 
dress,  lank  hair,  no  starch  in  his  linen,  no  gay  furniture  in  his 
house ;  whether  he  talked  through  his  nose,  and  showed  the 
whites  of  his  eyes ;  whether  he  named  his  children  Assurance, 
Tribulation,  and  Maher-shalal-hash-baz ;  whether  he  avoided 
Spring  Garden  when  in  town,  abstained  from  hunting  and  hawking 
when  in  the  country  ;  whether  he  expounded  hard  scriptures  to  his 
troop  of  dragoons,  and  talked  in  a  committee  of  ways  and  means 
about  seeking  the  Lord.  These  were  tests  which  could  easily  be 
applied.  The  misfortune  was  that  they  were  tests  which  proved 
nothing.  Such  as  they  were,  they  were  employed  by  the  dominant 
party.  And  the  consequence  was  that  a  crowd  of  impostors,  in 
every  walk  of  life,  began  to  mimic  and  to  caricature  what  were  then 
regarded  as  the  outward  signs  of  sanctity.  The  nation  was  not 
duped.  The  restraints  of  that  gloomy  time  were  such  as  would 
have  been  impatiently  borne,  if  imposed  by  men  who  were  uni- 
versally believed  to  be  saints.  Those  restraints  became  altogether 
insupportable  when  they  were  known  to  be  kept  up  for  the  profit 
of  hypocrites.  It  is  quite  certain  that,  even  if  the  royal  family 
had  never  returned,  even  if  Richard  Cromwell  or  Henry  Crom- 
well had  been  at  the  head  of  the  administration,  there  would  have 
been  a  great  relaxation  of  manners.  Before  the  Restoration  many 
signs  indicated  that  a  period  of  license  was  at  hand.  The  Resto- 
ration crushed  for  a  time  the  Puritan  party,  and  placed  supreme 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  libertine.  The  political  counter-revolu- 


650  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

tion  assisted  the  moral  counter-revolution,  and  was  in  turn  assisted 
by  it.  A  period  of  wild  and  desperate  dissoluteness  followed. 
Even  in  remote  manor-houses  and  hamlets  the  change  was  in 
some  degree  felt ;  but  in  London  the  outbreak  of  debauchery  was 
appalling ;  and  in  London  the  places  most  deeply  infected  were 
the  Palace,  the  quarters  inhabited  by  the  aristocracy,  and  the  Inns 
of  Court.  It  was  on  the  support  of  these  parts  of  the  town  that 
the  play-houses  depended.  The  character  of  the  drama  became 
conformed  to  the  character  of  its  patrons.  The  comic  poet  was 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  most  deeply  corrupted  part  of  a  corrupted 
society.  And  in  the  plays  before  us  we  find,  distilled  and  con- 
densed, the  essential  spirit  of  the  fashionable  world  during  the 
Anti-puritan  reaction. 

The  Puritan  had  affected  formality ;  the  comic  poet  laughed  at 
decorum.  The  Puritan  had  frowned  at  innocent  diversions ;  the 
comic  poet  took  under  his  patronage  the  most  flagitious  excesses. 
The  Puritan  had  canted ;  the  comic  poet  blasphemed.  The 
Puritan  had  made  an  affair  of  gallantry  felony  without  benefit  of 
clergy ;  the  comic  poet  represented  it  as  an  honourable  distinc- 
tion. The  Puritan  spoke  with  disdain  of  the  low  standard  of 
popular  morality ;  his  life  was  regulated  by  a  far  more  rigid  code ; 
his  virtue  was  sustained  by  motives  unknown  to  men  of  the  world. 
Unhappily  it  had  been  amply  proved  in  many  cases,  and  might 
well  be  suspected  in  many  more,  that  these  high  pretensions  were 
unfounded.  Accordingly,  the  fashionable  circles,  and  the  comic 
poets  who  were  the  spokesmen  of  those  circles,  took  up  the  notion 
that  all  professions  of  piety  and  integrity  were  to  be  construed  by 
the  rule  of  contrary ;  that  it  might  well  be  doubted  whether  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  virtue  in  the  world ;  but  that,  at  all  events, 
a  person  who  affected  to  be  better  than  his  neighbours  was  sure 
to  be  a  knave. 

In  the  old  drama  there  had  been  much  that  was  reprehensible. 
But  whoever  compares  even  the  least  decorous  plays  of  Fletcher 
with  those  contained  in  the  volume  before  us  will  see  how  much 
the  profligacy  which  follows  a  period  of  overstrained  austerity 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  651 

goes  beyond  the  profligacy  which  precedes  such  a  period.  The 
nation  resembled  the  demoniac  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
Puritans  boasted  that  the  unclean  spirit  was  cast  out.  The  house 
was  empty,  swept,  and  garnished ;  and  for  a  time  the  expelled 
tenant  wandered  through  dry  places  seeking  rest  and  finding  none. 
But  the  force  of  the  exorcism  was  spent.  The  fiend  returned  to 
his  abode  ;  and  returned  not  alone.  He  took  to  him  seven  other 
spirits  more  wicked  than  himself.  They  entered  in,  and  dwelt 
together  :  and  the  second  possession  was  worse  than  the  first.3 
****** 

We  pass  a  very  severe  censure  on  Wycherley,  when  we  say  that 
it  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  him  to  Congreve.  Congreve's  writings, 
indeed,  are  by  no  means  pure ;  nor  was  he,  as  far  as  we  are  able 
to  judge,  a  warm-hearted  or  high-minded  man.  Yet,  in  coming 
to  him,  we  feel  that  the  worst  is  over,  that  we  are  one  remove  fur- 
ther from  the  Restoration,  that  we  are  past  the  Nadir  of  national 
taste  and  morality. 

WILLIAM  CONGREVE  was  born  in  1670,  at  Bardsey,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Leeds.  His  father,  a  younger  son  of  a  very  ancient 
Staffordshire  family,  had  distinguished  himself  among  the  cavaliers 
in  the  civil  war,  was  set  down  after  the  Restoration  for  the  Order 
of  the  Royal  Oak,  and  subsequently  settled  in  Ireland,  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Burlington. 

Congreve  passed  his  childhood  and  youth  in  Ireland.  He  was 
sent  to  school  at  Kilkenny,  and  thence  went  to  the  University  of 
Dublin.  His  learning  does  great  honour  to  his  instructors.  From 
his  writings  it  appears,  not  only  that  he  was  well  acquainted  with 
Latin  literature,  but  that  his  knowledge  of  the  Greek  poets  was 
such  as  was  not,  in  his  time,  common  even  in  a  college. 

When  he  had  completed  his  academical  studies,  he  was  sent  to 
London  to  study  the  law,  and  was  entered  of  the  Middle  Temple. 
He  troubled  himself,  however,  very  little  about  pleading  or  con- 
veyancing, and  gave  himself  up  to  literature  and  society.  Two 
kinds  of  ambition  early  took  possession  of  his  mind,  and  often 
8  MACAULAY'S  criticism  of  Wycherley  is  omitted. 


652  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAU  LAY. 

pulled  it  in  opposite  directions.  He  was  conscious  of  great  fer- 
tility of  thought  and  power  of  ingenious  combination.  His  lively 
conversation,  his  polished  manners,  and  his  highly  respectable 
connections,  had  obtained  for  him  ready  access  to  the  best  com- 
pany. He  longed  to  be  a  great  writer.  He  longed  to  be  a  man 
of  fashion.  Either  object  was  within  his  reach.  But  could  he 
secure  both?  Was  there  not  something  vulgar  in  letters,  some- 
thing inconsistent  with  the  easy  apathetic  graces  of  the  man  of  the 
mode?  Was  it  aristocratical  to  be  confounded  with  creatures 
who  lived  in  the  cocklofts  of  Grub  Street,  to  bargain  with  pub- 
lishers, to  hurry  printers'  devils  and  be  hurried  by  them,  to  squab- 
ble with  managers,  to  be  applauded  or  hissed  by  pit,  boxes,  and 
galleries  ?  Could  he  forego  the  renown  of  being  the  first  wit  of 
his  age  ?  Could  he  attain  that  renown  without  sullying  what  he 
valued  quite  as  much,  his  character  for  gentility  ?  The  history  of 
his  life  is  the  history  of  a  conflict  between  these  two  impulses. 
In  his  youth  the  desire  of  literary  fame  had  the  mastery  ;  but  soon 
the  meaner  ambition  overpowered  the  higher,  and  obtained  su- 
preme dominion  over  his  mind. 

His  first  work,  a  novel  of  no  great  value,  he  published  under 
the  assumed  name  of  Cleophil.  His  second  was  The  Old  Bachelor, 
acted  in  1693,  a  play  inferior  indeed  to  his  other  comedies,  but, 
in  his  own  line,  inferior  to  them  alone.  The  plot  is  equally  des- 
titute of  interest  and  of  probability.  The  characters  are  either 
not  distinguishable,  or  are  distinguished  only  by  peculiarities  of 
the  most  glaring  kind.  But  the  dialogue  is  resplendent  with  wit 
and  eloquence,  which  indeed  are  so  abundant  that  the  fool  comes 
in  for  an  ample  share,  and  yet  preserves  a  certain  colloquial  air,  a 
certain  indescribable  ease,  of  which  Wycherley  had  given  no  ex- 
ample, and  which  Sheridan  in  vain  attempted  to  imitate.  The 
author,  divided  between  pride  and  shame,  pride  at  having  written 
a  good  play,  and  shame  at  having  done  an  ungentlemanlike  thing, 
pretended  that  he  had  merely  scribbled  a  few  scenes  for  his  own 
amusement,  and  affected  to  yield  unwillingly  to  the  importunities 
of  those  who  pressed  him  to  try  his  fortune  on  the  stage.  The 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  653 

Old  Bachelor  was  seen  in  manuscript  by  Dryden,  one  of  whose 
best  qualities  was  a  hearty  and  generous  admiration  for  the  talents 
of  others.  He  declared  that  he  had  never  read  such  a  first  play, 
and  lent  his  services  to  bring  it  into  a  form  fit  for  representation. 
Nothing  was  wanted  to  the  success  of  the  piece.  It  was  so  cast 
as  to  bring  into  play  all  the  comic  talent,  and  to  exhibit  on  the 
boards  in  one  view  all  the  beauty,  which  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  then 
the  only  theatre  in  London,  could  assemble.  The  result  was  a 
complete  triumph  ;  and  the  author  was  gratified  with  rewards  more 
substantial  than  the  applauses  of  the  pit.  Montagu,  then  a  lord  of 
the  treasury,  immediately  gave  him  a  place,  and,  in  a  short  time, 
added  the  reversion  of  another  place  of  much  greater  value,  which, 
however,  did  not  become  vacant  till  many  years  had  elapsed. 

In  1694,  Congreve  brought  out  The  Double  Dealer,  a  comedy 
in  which  all  the  powers  which  had  produced  The  Old  Bachelor 
showed  themselves,  matured  by  time  and  improved  by  exercise. 
But  the  audience  was  shocked  by  the  characters  of  Maskwell  and 
Lady  Touchwood.  And,  indeed,  there  is  something  strangely 
revolting  in  the  way  in  which  a  group  that  seems  to  belong  to  the 
house  of  Laius  or  of  Pelops  is  introduced  into  the  midst  of  the 
Brisks,  Froths,  Carelesses,  and  Plyants.  The  play  was  unfavourably 
received.  Yet,  if  the  praise  of  distinguished  men  could  compen- 
sate an  author  for  the  disapprobation  of  the  multitude,  Congreve 
had  no  reason  to  repine.  Dryden,  in  one  of  the  most  ingenious, 
magnificent,  and  pathetic  pieces  that  he  ever  wrote,  extolled  the 
author  of  The  Double  Dealer  in  terms  which  now  appear  extrava- 
gantly hyperbolical.  Till  Congreve  came  forth,  —  so  ran  this 
exquisite  flattery,  —  the  superiority  of  the  poets  who  preceded  the 
civil  wars  was  acknowledged. 

"  Theirs  was  the  giant  race  before  the  flood." 

Since  the  return  of  the  Royal  House,  much  art  and  ability  had 
been  exerted,  but  the  old  masters  had  been  still  unrivalled. 

"  Our  builders  were  with  want  of  genius  curst, 
The  second  temple  was  not  like  the  first." 


654  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

At  length  a  writer  had  arisen  who,  just  emerging  from  boyhood, 
had  surpassed  the  authors  of  The  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle, 
and  of  The  Silent  Woman,  and  who  had  only  one  rival  left  to  con- 
tend with. 

"  Heaven,  that  but  once  was  prodigal  before, 
To  Shakspeare  gave  as  much,  she  could  not  give  him  more." 

Some  lines  near  the  end  of  the  poem  are  singularly  graceful  and 
touching,  and  sank  deep  into  the  heart  of  Congreve. 

"  Already  am  I  worn  with  cares  and  age, 
And  just  abandoning  the  ungrateful  stage; 
But  you,  whom  every  Muse  and  Grace  adorn, 
Whom  I  foresee  to  better  fortune  born, 
Be  kind  to  my  remains;   and,  oh,  defend 
Against  your  judgment  your  departed  friend. 
Let  not  the  insulting  foe  my  fame  pursue, 
But  guard  those  laurels  which  descend  to  you." 

The  crowd,  as  usual,  gradually  came  over  to  the  opinion  of  the 
men  of  note ;  and  The  Double  Dealer  was  before  long  quite  as 
much  admired,  though  perhaps  never  so  much  liked,  as  The  Old 
Bachelor. 

In  1695  appeared  Love  for  Love,  superior  both  in  wit  and  in 
scenic  effect  to  either  of  the  preceding  plays.  It  was  performed 
at  a  new  theatre  which  Betterton  and  some  other  actors,  disgusted 
by  the  treatment  which  they  had  received  in  Drury  Lane,  had  just 
opened  in  a  tennis-court  near  Lincoln's  Inn.  Scarcely  any  com- 
edy within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  man  had  been  equally  suc- 
cessful. The  actors  were  so  elated  that  they  gave  Congreve  a 
share  in  their  theatre  ;  and  he  promised  in  return  to  furnish  them 
with  a  play  every  year,  if  his  health  would  permit.  Two  years 
passed,  however,  before  he  produced  The  Mourning  Bride,  a  play 
which,  paltry  as  it  is  when  compared,  we  do  not  say,  with  Lear  or 
Macbeth,  but  with  the  best  dramas  of  Massinger  and  Ford,  stands 
very  high  among  the  tragedies  of  the  age  in  which  it  was  written. 
To  find  any  thing  so  good  we  must  go  twelve  years  back  to 


CRITICAL   AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  655 

Venice  Preserved,  or  six  years  forward  to  The  Fair  Penitent. 
The  noble  passage  which  Johnson,  both  in  writing  and  in  conver- 
sation, extolled  above  any  other  in  the  English  drama,  has  suf- 
fered greatly  in  the  public  estimation  from  the  extravagance  of 
his  praise.  Had  he  contented  himself  with  saying  that  it  was  finer 
than  any  thing  in  the  tragedies  of  Dryden,  Otway,  Lee,  Rowe, 
Southern,  Hughes,  and  Addison,  than  any  thing,  in  short,  that  had 
been  written  for  the  stage  since  the  days  of  Charles  the  First,  he 
would  not  have  been  in  the  wrong. 

The  success  of  The  Mourning  Bride  was  even  greater  than  that 
of  Love  for  Love.  Congreve  was  now  allowed  to  be  the  first  tragic, 
as  well  as  the  first  comic  dramatist  of  his  time ;  and  all  this  at 
twenty-seven.  We  believe  that  no  English  writer  except  Lord 
Byron  has,  at  so  early  an  age,  stood  so  high  in  the  estimation  of 
his  contemporaries. 

At  this  time  took  place  an  event  which  deserves,  in  our  opinion, 
a  very  different  sort  of  notice  from  that  which  has  been  bestowed 
on  it  by  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt.  The  nation  had  now  nearly  recovered 
from  the  demoralizing  effect  of  the  Puritan  austerity.  The  gloomy 
follies  of  the  reign  of  the  Saints  were  but  faintly  remembered. 
The  evils  produced  by  profaneness  and  debauchery  were  recent 
and  glaring.  The  Court,  since  the  Revolution,  had  ceased  to 
patronise  licentiousness.  Mary  was  strictly  pious ;  and  the  vices 
of  the  cold,  stern,  and  silent  William,  were  not  obtruded  on  the 
public  eye.  Discountenanced  by  the  government,  and  falling  in 
the  favour  of  the  people,  the  profligacy  of  the  Restoration  still 
maintained  its  ground  in  some  parts  of  society.  Its  strongholds 
were  the  places  where  men  of  wit  and  fashion  congregated,  and 
above  all,  the  theatres.  At  this  conjuncture  arose  a  great  reformer 
whom,  widely  as  we  differ  from  him  in  many  important  points,  we 
can  never  mention  without  respect. 

JEREMY  COLLIER  was  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England, 
bred  at  Cambridge.  His  talents  and  attainments  were  such  as 
might  have  been  expected  to  raise  him  to  the  highest  honours  of 
his  profession.  He  had  an  extensive  knowledge  of  books ;  yet  he 


656  THOMAS  BASING  TON  MACAULAY. 

had  mingled  much  with  polite  society,  and  is  said  not  to  have 
wanted  either  grace  or  vivacity  in  conversation.  There  were  few 
branches  of  literature  to  which  he  had  not  paid  some  attention. 
But  ecclesiastical  antiquity  was  his  favourite  study.  In  religious 
opinions  he  belonged  to  that  section  of  the  Church  of  England  which 
lies  furthest  from  Geneva  and  nearest  to  Rome.  His  notions  touching 
Episcopal  government,  holy  orders,  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments, 
the  authority  of  the  Fathers,  the  guilt  of  schism,  the  importance  of 
vestments,  ceremonies,  and  solemn  days,  differed  little  from  those 
which  are  now  held  by  Dr.  Pusey  and  Mr.  Newman.  Towards  the 
close  of  his  life,  indeed,  Collier  took  some  steps  which  brought 
him  still  nearer  to  Popery,  mixed  water  with  the  wine  in  the  Eu- 
charist, made  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  confirmation,  employed  oil 
in  the  visitation  of  the  sick,  and  offered  up  prayers  for  the  dead. 
His  politics  were  of  a  piece  with  his  divinity.  He  was  a  Tory  of 
the  highest  sort,  such  as  in  the  cant  of  his  age  was  called  a  Tantivy. 
Not  even  the  persecution  of  the  bishops  and  the  spoliation  of  the 
universities  could  shake  his  steady  loyalty.  While  the  Convention 
was  sitting,  he  wrote  with  vehemence  in  defence  of  the  fugitive 
king,  and  was  in  consequence  arrested.  But  his  dauntless  spirit 
was  not  to  be  so  tamed.  He  refused  to  take  the  oaths,  renounced 
all  his  preferments,  and,  in  a  succession  of  pamphlets  written  with 
much  violence  and  with  some  ability,  attempted  to  excite  the 
nation  against  its  new  masters.  In  1692,  he  was  again  arrested  on 
suspicion  of  having  been  concerned  in  a  treasonable  plot.  So 
unbending  were  his  principles  that  his  friends  could  hardly  per- 
suade him  to  let  them  bail  him ;  and  he  afterwards  expressed  his 
remorse  for  having  been  induced  thus  to  acknowledge,  by  impli- 
cation, the  authority  of  an  usurping  government.  He  was  soon  in 
trouble  again.  Sir  John  Friend  and  Sir  William  Parkins  were  tried 
and  convicted  of  high  treason  for  planning  the  murder  of  King 
William.  Collier  administered  spiritual  consolation  to  them,  at- 
tended them  to  Tyburn,  and,  just  before  they  were  turned  off, 
laid  his  hands  on  their  heads,  and  by  the  authority  which  he 
derived  from  Christ,  solemnly  absolved  them.  This  scene  gave 


CRITICAL  AND   HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  657 

indescribable  scandal.  Tories  joined  with  Whigs  in  blaming  the 
conduct  of  the  daring  priest.  Some  acts,  it  was  said,  which  fall 
under  the  definition  of  treason  are  such  that  a  good  man  may,  in 
troubled  times,  be  led  into  them  even  by  his  virtues.  It  may  be 
necessary  for  the  protection  of  society  to  punish  such  a  man.  But 
even  in  punishing  him  we  consider  him  as  legally  rather  than  mor- 
ally guilty,  and  hope  that  his  honest  error,  though  it  cannot  be 
pardoned  here,  will  not  be  counted  to  him  for  sin  hereafter.  But 
such  was  not  the  case  of  Collier's  penitents.  They  were  concerned 
in  a  plot  for  waylaying  and  butchering,  in  an  hour  of  security,  one 
who,  whether  he  were  or  were  not  their  king,  was  at  all  events 
their  fellow-creature.  Whether  the  Jacobite  theory  about  the 
rights  of  governments  and  the  duties  of  subjects  were  or  were  not 
well  founded,  assassination  must  always  be  considered  as  a  great 
crime.  It  is  condemned  even  by  the  maxims  of  worldly  honour 
and  morality.  Much  more  must  it  be  an  object  of  abhorrence 
to  the  pure  Spouse  of  Christ.  The  Church  cannot  surely,  without 
the  saddest  and  most  mournful  forebodings,  see  one  of  her  chil- 
dren who  has  been  guilty  of  this  great  wickedness  pass  into  eternity 
without  any  sign  of  repentance.  That  these  traitors  had  given  any 
sign  of  repentance  was  not  alleged.  It  might  be  that  they  had 
privately  declared  their  contrition ;  and,  if  so,  the  minister  of  re- 
ligion might  be  justified  in  privately  assuring  them  of  the  Divine 
forgiveness.  But  a  public  remission  ought  to  have  been  preceded 
by  a  public  atonement.  The  regret  of  these  men,  if  expressed  at 
all,  had  been  expressed  in  secret.  The  hands  of  Collier  had  been 
laid  on  them  in  the  presence  of  thousands.  The  inference  which 
his  enemies  drew  from  his  conduct  was  that  he  did  not  consider 
the  conspiracy  against  the  life  of  William  as  sinful.  But  this  infer- 
ence he  very  vehemently,  and,  we  doubt  not,  very  sincerely  de- 
nied. 

The  storm  raged.  The  bishops  put  forth  a  solemn  censure  of  the 
absolution.  The  Attorney-General  brought  the  matter  before  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  Collier  had  now  made  up  his  mind  not 
to  give  bail  for  his  appearance  before  any  court  which  derived  its 


658  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

authority  from  the  usurper.  He  accordingly  absconded  and  was 
outlawed.  He  survived  these  events  about  thirty  years.  The 
prosecution  was  not  pressed  ;  and  he  was  soon  suffered  to  resume 
his  literary  pursuits  in  quiet.  At  a  later  period,  many  attempts 
were  made  to  shake  his  perverse  integrity  by  offers  of  wealth  and 
dignity,  but  in  vain.  When  he  died,  towards  the  end  of  the  reign 
of  George  the  First,  he  was  still  under  the  ban  of  the  law. 

We  shall  not  be  suspected  of  regarding  either  the  politics  or 
the  theology  of  Collier  with  partiality;  but  we  believe  him  to 
have  been  as  honest  and  courageous  a  man  as  ever  lived.  We 
will  go  further,  and  say  that,  though  passionate  and  often  wrong- 
headed,  he  was  a  singularly  fair  controversialist,  candid,  generous, 
too  high-spirited  to  take  mean  advantages  even  in  the  most  ex- 
citing disputes,  and  pure  from  all  taint  of  personal  malevolence. 
It  must  also  be  admitted  that  his  opinions  on  ecclesiastical  and 
political  affairs,  though  in  themselves  absurd  and  pernicious,  emi- 
nently qualified  him  to  be  the  reformer  of  our  lighter  literature. 
The  libertinism  of  the  press  and  of  the  stage  was,  as  we  have  said, 
the  effect  of  a  reaction  against  the  Puritan  strictness.  Profligacy 
was,  like  the  oak  leaf  of  the  twenty-ninth  of  May,  the  badge  of  a 
cavalier  and  a  high  churchman.  Decency  was  associated  with 
conventicles  and  calves'  heads.  Grave  prelates  were  too  much 
disposed  to  wink  at  the  excesses  of  a  body  of  zealous  and  able 
allies  who  covered  Roundheads  and  Presbyterians  with  ridicule. 
If  a  Whig  raised  his  voice  against  the  impiety  and  licentiousness 
of  the  fashionable  writers,  his  mouth  was  instantly  stopped  by  the 
retort :  —  You  are  one  of  those  who  groan  at  a  light  quotation  from 
Scripture,  and  raise  estates  out  of  the  plunder  of  the  Church,  who 
shudder  at  a  double  entendre,  and  chop  off  the  heads  of  kings. 
A  Baxter,  a  Burnet,  even  a  Tillotson,  would  have  done  little  to 
purify  our  literature.  But  when  a  man  fanatical  in  the  cause  of 
episcopacy  and  actually  under  outlawry  for  his  attachment  to 
hereditary  right,  came  forward  as  the  champion  of  decency,  the 
battle  was  already  half  won. 

In  1698,  Collier  published  his  Short  View  of  the  Profaneness  and 


CRITICAL   AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  659 

Immorality  of  the  English  Stage,  a  book  which  threw  the  whole 
literary  world  into  commotion,  but  which  is  now  much  less  read 
than  it  deserves.  The  faults  of  the  work,  indeed,  are  neither  few 
nor  small.  The  dissertations  on  the  Greek  and  Latin  drama  do 
not  at  all  help  the  argument,  and,  whatever  may  have  been 
thought  of  them  by  the  generation  which  fancied  that  Christ 
Church  had  refuted  Bentley,  are  such  as,  in  the  present  day,  a 
scholar  of  very  humble  pretensions  may  venture  to  pronounce 
boyish,  or  rather  babyish.  The  censures  are  not  sufficiently  dis- 
criminating. The  authors  whom  Collier  accused  had  been  guilty 
of  such  gross  sins  against  decency  that  he  was  certain  to  weaken 
instead  of  strengthening  his  case,  by  introducing  into  his  charge 
against  them  any  matter  about  which  there  could  be  the  smallest 
dispute.  He  was,  however,  so  injudicious  as  to  place  among  the 
outrageous  offences  which  he  justly  arraigned,  some  things  which 
are  really  quite  innocent,  and  some  slight  instances  of  levity  which, 
though  not  perhaps  strictly  correct,  could  easily  be  paralleled 
from  the  works  of  writers  who  had  rendered  great  services  to 
morality  and  religion.  Thus  he  blames  Congreve,  the  number 
and  gravity  of  whose  real  transgressions  made  it  quite  unnecessary 
to  tax  him  with  any  that  were  not  real,  for  using  the  words 
"  martyr  "  and  "  inspiration  "  in  a  light  sense  ;  as  if  an  archbishop 
might  not  say  that  a  speech  was  inspired  by  claret,  or  that  an 
alderman  was  a  martyr  to  the  gout.  Sometimes,  again,  Collier 
does  not  sufficiently  distinguish  between  the  dramatist  and  the 
persons  of  the  drama.  Thus  he  blames  Vanbrugh  for  putting  into 
Lord  Foppington's  mouth  some  contemptuous  expressions  respect- 
ing the  Church  service ;  though  it  is  obvious  that  Vanbrugh 
could  not  better  express  reverence  than  by  making  Lord  Fop- 
pington  express  contempt.  There  is  also  throughout  the  Short 
View  too  strong  a  display  of  professional  feeling.  Collier  is  not 
content  with  claiming  for  his  order  an  immunity  from  indiscrimi- 
nate scurrility ;  he  will  not  allow  that,  in  any  case,  any  word  or  act 
of  a  divine  can  be  a  proper  subject  for  ridicule.  Nor  does  he 
confine  this  benefit  of  clergy  to  the  ministers  of  the  Established 


660  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

Church.  He  extends  the  privilege  to  Catholic  priests,  and,  what 
in  him  is  more  surprising,  to  Dissenting  preachers.  This,  how- 
ever, is  a  mere  trifle.  Imaums,  Brahmins,  priests  of  Jupiter, 
priests  of  Baal,  are  all  to  be  held  sacred.  Dryden  is  blamed  for 
making  the  Mufti  in  Don  Sebastian  talk  nonsense.  Lee  is  called 
to  a  severe  account  for  his  incivility  to  Tiresias.  But  the  most 
curious  passage  is  that  in  which  Collier  resents  some  uncivil  re- 
flections thrown  by  Cassandra,  in  Dryden's  Cleomenes,  on  the  calf 
Apis  and  his  hierophants.  The  words  "grass-eating,  foddered 
god,"  words  which  really  are  much  in  the  style  of  several  passages 
in  the  Old  Testament,  give  as  much  offence  to  this  Christian 
divine  as  they  could  have  given  to  the  priests  of  Memphis. 

But,  when  all  deductions  have  been  made,  great  merit  must  be 
allowed  to  this  work.  There  is  hardly  any  book  of  that  time 
from  which  it  would  be  possible  to  select  specimens  of  writing 
so  excellent  and  so  various.  To  compare  Collier  with  Pascal 
would  indeed  be  absurd.  Yet  we  hardly  know  where,  except  in 
the  Provincial  Letters,  we  can  find  mirth  so  harmoniously  and 
becomingly  blended  with  solemnity  as  in  the  Short  View.  In 
truth,  all  the  modes  of  ridicule,  from  broad  fun  to  polished  and 
antithetical  sarcasm,  were  at  Collier's  command.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  complete  master  of  the  rhetoric  of  honest  indigna- 
tion. We  scarcely  know  any  volume  which  contains  so  many 
bursts  of  that  peculiar  eloquence  which  comes  from  the  heart  and 
goes  to  the  heart.  Indeed,  the  spirit  of  the  book  is  truly  heroic. 
In  order  fairly  to  appreciate  it,  we  must  remember  the  situation 
in  which  the  writer  stood.  He  was  under  the  frown  of  power. 
His  name  was  already  a  mark  for  the  invectives  of  one  half  of  the 
svriters  of  the  age,  when,  in  the  cause  of  good  taste,  good  sense,  and 
£Ood  morals,  he  gave  battle  to  the  other  half.  Strong  as  his  political 
prejudices  were,  he  seems  on  this  occasion  to  have  entirely  laid 
them  aside.  He  has  forgotten  that  he  is  a  Jacobite,  and  remem- 
bers only  that  he  is  a  citizen  and  a  Christian.  Some  of  his 
sharpest  censures  are  directed  against  poetry  which  had  been 
hailed  with  delight  by  the  Tory  party,  and  had  inflicted  a  deep 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  661 

wound  on  the  Whigs.  It  is  inspiriting  to  see  how  gallantly  the 
solitary  outlaw  advances  to  attack  enemies,  formidable  separately, 
and,  it  might  have  been  thought,  irresistible  when  combined, 
distributes  his  swashing  blows  right  and  left  among  Wycherley, 
Congreve,  and  Vanbrugh,  treads  the  wretched  D'Urfey  down  in 
the  dirt  beneath  his  feet,  and  strikes  with  all  his  strength  full  at 
the  towering  crest  of  Dryden. 

The  effect  produced  by  the  Short  View  was  immense.  The 
nation  was  on  the  side  of  Collier.  But  it  could  not  be  doubted 
that  in  the  great  host  which  he  had  defied,  some  champion  would 
be  found  to  lift  the  gauntlet.  The  general  belief  was  that  Dryden 
would  take  the  field ;  and  all  the  wits  anticipated  a  sharp  contest 
between  two  well-paired  combatants.  The  great  poet  had  been 
singled  out  in  the  most  marked  manner.  It  was  well  known  that 
he  was  deeply  hurt,  that  much  smaller  provocations  had  formerly 
roused  him  to  violent  resentment,  and  that  there  was  no  literary 
weapon,  offensive  or  defensive,  of  which  he"  was  not  master.  But 
his  conscience  smote  him ;  he  stood  abashed,  like  the  fallen  arch- 
angel at  the  rebuke  of  Zephon,  — 

"  And  felt  how  awful  goodness  is,  and  saw 
Virtue  in  her  shape  how  lovely;  saw  and  pined 
His  loss." 

At  a  later  period  he  mentioned  the  Short  View  in  the  preface  to 
his  Fables.  He  complained,  with  some  asperity,  of  the  harshness 
with  which  he  had  been  treated,  and  urged  some  matters  in  miti- 
gation. But,  on  the  whole,  he  frankly  acknowledged  that  he  had 
been  justly  reproved.  "  If,"  said  he,  "  Mr.  Collier  be  my  enemy, 
let  him  triumph.  If  he  be  my  friend,  as  I  have  given  him  no  per- 
sonal occasion  to  be  otherwise,  he  will  be  glad  of  my  repentance." 
It  would  have  been  wise  in  Congreve  to  follow  his  master's 
example.  He  was  precisely  in  that  situation  in  which  it  is  mad- 
ness to  attempt  a  vindication ;  for  his  guilt  was  so  clear  that  no 
address  or  eloquence  could  obtain  an  acquittal.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  in  his  case  many  extenuating  circumstances 


662  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

which,  if  he  had  acknowledged  his  error  and  promised  amend- 
ment, would  have  procured  his  pardon.  The  most  rigid  censor 
could  not  but  make  great  allowances  for  the  faults  into  which  so 
young  a  man  had  been  seduced  by  evil  example,  by  the  luxuri- 
ance of  a  vigorous  fancy,  and  by  the  inebriating  effect  of  popular 
applause.  The  esteem,  as  well  as  the  admiration,  of  the  public 
was  still  within  his  reach.  He  might  easily  have  effaced  all 
memory  of  his  transgressions,  and  have  shared  with  Addison  the 
glory  of  showing  that  the  most  brilliant  wit  may  be  the  ally  of 
virtue.  But,  in  any  case,  prudence  should  have  restrained  him 
from  encountering  Collier.  The  non-juror  was  a  man  thoroughly 
fitted  by  nature,  education,  and  habit,  for  polemical  dispute. 
Congreve's  mind,  though  a  mind  of  no  common  fertility  and 
vigour,  was  of  a  different  class.  No  man  understood  so  well  the 
art  of  polishing  epigrams  and  repartees  into  the  clearest  efful- 
gence, and  setting  them  neatly  in  easy  and  familiar  dialogue.  In 
this  sort  of  jewellery  he  attained  to  a  mastery  unprecedented  and 
inimitable.  But  he  was  altogether  rude  in  the  art  of  controversy ; 
and  he  had  a  cause  to  defend  which  scarcely  any  art  could  have 
rendered  victorious. 

The  event  was  such  as  might  have  been  foreseen.  Congreve's 
answer  was  a  complete  failure.  He  was  angry,  obscure,  and  dull. 
Even  the  Green  Room  and  Will's  Coffee-House  were  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  in  wit,  as  well  as  in  argument,  the  parson  had  a 
decided  advantage  over  the  poet.  Not  only  was  Congreve  unable 
to  make  any  show  of  a  case  where  he  was  in  the  wrong ;  but  he 
succeeded  in  putting  himself  completely  in  the  wrong  where  he 
was  in  the  right.  Collier  had  taxed  him  with  profaneness  for 
calling  a  clergyman  Mr.  Prig,  and  for  introducing  a  coachman 
named  Jehu,  in  allusion  to  the  King  of  Israel,  who  was  known  at  a 
distance  by  his  furious  driving.  Had  there  been  nothing  worse  in 
The  Old  Bachelor  and  Double  Dealer,  Congreve  might  pass  for 
as  pure  a  writer  as  Cowper  himself,  who,  in  poems  revised  by  so 
austere  a  censor  as  John  Newton,  calls  a  fox-hunting  squire  Nim- 
rod,  and  gives  to  a  chaplain  the  disrespectful  name  of  Smug.  Con- 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  663 

greve  might  with  good  effect  have  appealed  to  the  public  whether 
it  might  not  be  fairly  presumed  that,  when  such  frivolous  charges 
were  made,  there  were  no  very  serious  charges  to  make.  Instead 
of  doing  this,  he  pretended  that  he  meant  no  allusion  to  the  Bible 
by  the  name  of  Jehu,  and  no  reflection  by  the  name  of  Prig. 
Strange,  that  a  man  of  such  parts  should,  in  order  to  defend 
himself  against  imputations  which  nobody  could  regard  as  im- 
portant, tell  untruths  which  it  was  certain  that  nobody  would 
believe  ! 

One  of  the  pleas  which  Congreve  set  up  for  himself  and  his 
brethren  was  that,  though  they  might  be  guilty  of  a  little  levity- 
here  and  there,  they  were  careful  to  inculcate  a  moral,  packed 
close  into  two  or  three  lines,  at  the  end  of  every  play.  Had  the 
fact  been  as  he  stated  it,  the  defence  would  be  worth  very  little. 
For  no  man  acquainted  with  human  nature  could  think  that  a 
sententious  couplet  would  undo  all  the  mischief  that  five  profli- 
gate acts  had  done.  But  it  would  have  been  wise  in  Congreve  to 
have  looked  again  at  his  own  comedies  before  he  used  this  argu- 
ment. Collier  did  so ;  and  found  that  the  moral  of  The  Old 
Bachelor,  the  grave  apophthegm  which  is  to  be  a  set- off  against  all 
the  libertinism  of  the  piece,  is  contained  in  the  following  triplet : 

"  What  rugged  ways  attend  the  noon  of  life  ! 
Our  sun  declines,  and  with  what  anxious  strife, 
What  pain,  we  tug  that  galling  load  —  a  wife." 

"  Love  for  Love"  says  Collier,  "  may  have  a  somewhat  better 
farewell,  but  it  would  do  a  man  little  service  should  he  remember 
it  to  his  dying  day  :  "  — 

"  The  miracle  to-day  is,  that  we  find 
A  lover  true,  not  that  a  woman's  kind." 

Collier's  reply  was  severe  and  triumphant.  One  of  his  repar- 
tees we  will  quote,  not  as  a  favourable  specimen  of  his  manner, 
but  because  it  was  called  forth  by  Congreve 's  characteristic  affec- 
tation. The  poet  spoke  of  The  Old  Bachelor  as  a  trifle  to  which 


664  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

he  attached  no  value,  and  which  had  become  public  by  a  sort  of 
accident.  "  I  wrote  it,"  he  said,  "  to  amuse  myself  in  a  slow  re- 
covery from  a  fit  of  sickness."  "  What  his  disease  was,"  replied 
Collier,  "  I  am  not  to  inquire  :  but  it  must  be  a  very  ill  one  to  be 
worse  than  the  remedy." 

All  that  Congreve  gained  by  coming  forward  on  this  occasion, 
was  that  he  completely  deprived  himself  of  the  excuse  which  he 
might  with  justice  have  pleaded  for  his  early  offences.  "  Why," 
asked  Collier,  "  should  the  man  laugh  at  the  mischief  of  the  boy, 
and  make  the  disorders  of  his  nonage  his  own,  by  an  after  appro- 
bation?" 

Congreve  was  not  Collier's  only  opponent.  Vanbrugh,  Dennis, 
and  Settle  took  the  field.  And  from  a  passage  in  a  contem- 
porary satire,  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  among  the  answers  to 
the  Short  View  was  one  written,  or  supposed  to  be  written,  by 
Wycherley.  The  victory  remained  with  Collier.  A  great  and 
rapid  reform  in  almost  all  the  departments  of  our  lighter  literature 
was  the  effect  of  his  labours.  A.  new  race  of  wits  and  poets  arose, 
who  generally  treated  with  reverence  the  great  ties  which  bind 
society  together,  and  whose  very  indecencies  were  decent  when 
compared  with  those  of  the  school  which  flourished  during  the 
last  forty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

This  controversy  probably  prevented  Congreve  from  fulfilling 
the  engagements  into  which  he  had  entered  with  the  actors.  It 
was  not  until  1 700  that  he  produced  The  Way  of  the  World,  the 
most  deeply  meditated  and  the  most  brilliantly  written  of  all  his 
works.  It  wants,  perhaps,  the  constant  movement,  the  efferves- 
cence of  animal  spirits,  which  we  find  in  Love  for  Love.  But  the 
hysterical  rants  of  Lady  Wishfort,  the  meeting  of  Witwould  and 
his  brother,  the  country  knight's  courtship  and  his  subsequent 
revel,  and,  above  all,  the  chase  and  surrender  of  Millamant,  are 
superior  to  anything  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of 
English  comedy  from  the  civil  war  downwards.  It  is  quite  inex- 
plicable to  us  that  this  play  should  have  failed  on  the  stage.  Yet 
so  it  was ;  and  the  author,  already  sore  with  the  wounds  which 


CRITICAL   AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  665 

Collier  had  inflicted,  was  galled  past  endurance  by  this  new 
stroke.  He  resolved  never  again  to  expose  himself  to  the  rude- 
ness of  a  tasteless  audience,  and  took  leave  of  the  theatre  forever. 

He  lived  twenty-eight  years  longer,  without  adding  to  the  high 
literary  reputation  which  he  had  attained.  He  read  much  while 
he  retained  his  eye-sight,  and  now  and  then  wrote  a  short  essay, 
or  put  an  idle  tale  into  verse ;  but  he  appears  never  to  have 
planned  any  considerable  work.  The  miscellaneous  pieces  which 
he  published  in  1710  are  of  little  value,  and  have  long  been  for- 
gotten. 

The  stock  of  fame  which  he  had  acquired  by  his  comedies  was 
sufficient,  assisted  by  the  graces  of  his  manner  and  conversation, 
to  secure  for  him  a  high  place  in  the  estimation  of  the  world. 
During  the  winter,  he  lived  among  the  most  distinguished  and 
agreeable  people  in  London.  His  summers  were  passed  at  the 
splendid  country-seats  of  ministers  and  peers.  Literary  envy  and 
political  faction,  which  in  that  age  respected  nothing  else,  re- 
spected his  repose.  He  professed  to  be  one  of  the  party  of 
which  his  patron  Montagu,  now  Lord  Halifax,  was  the  head.  But 
he  had  civil  words  and  small  good  offices  for  men  of  every  shade 
of  opinion.  And  men  of  every  shade  of  opinion  spoke  well  of 
him  in  return. 

His  means  were  for  a  long  time  scanty.  The  place  which  he 
had  in  possession  barely  enabled  him  to  live  with  comfort.  And, 
when  the  Tories  came  into  power,  some  thought  that  he  would 
lose  even  this  moderate  provision.  But  Harley,  who  was  by  no 
means  disposed  to  adopt  the  exterminating  policy  of  the  October 
club,  and  who,  with  all  his  faults  of  understanding  and  temper, 
had  a  sincere  kindness  for  men  of  genius,  reassured  the  anxious 
poet  by  quoting  very  gracefully  and  happily  the  lines  of  Virgil, 

"  Non  obtusa  adeo  gestamus  pectora  Pa>ni, 
Nee  tarn  aversus  equos  Tyria  Sol  jungit  ab  urbe"  * 

*  We  Carthaginians  do  not  have  such  unfeeling  breasts,  nor  does  the  sun 
so  far  from  the  Tyrian  city  harness  his  horses.  —  VIRGIL,  ^Eneid,  I.  567-8. 


666  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 

The  indulgence  with  which  Congreve  was  treated  by  the  Tories 
was  not  purchased  by  any  concession  on  his  part  which  could  justly 
offend  the  Whigs.  It  was  his  rare  good  fortune  to  share  the  tri- 
umph of  his  friends  without  having  shared  their  proscription. 
When  the  House  of  Hanover  came  to  the  throne,  he  partook 
largely  of  the  prosperity  of  those  with  whom  he  was  connected. 
The  reversion  to  which  he  had  been  nominated  twenty  years  before 
fell  in.  He  was  made  secretary  to  the  island  of  Jamaica ;  and  his 
whole  income  amounted  to  twelve  hundred  a  year,  a  fortune  which, 
for  a  single  man,  was  in  that  age  not  only  easy  but  splendid.  He 
continued,  however,  to  practise  the  frugality  which  he  had  learned 
when  he  could  scarce  spare,  as  Swift  tells  us,  a  shilling  to  pay  the 
chairman  who  carried  him  to  Lord  Halifax's.  Though  he  had 
nobody  to  save  for,  he  laid  up  at  least  as  much  as  he  spent. 

The  infirmities  of  age  came  early  upon  him.  His  habits  had 
been  intemperate  ;  he  suffered  much  from  gout ;  and,  when  con- 
fined to  his  chamber,  he  had  no  longer  the  solace  of  literature. 
Blindness,  the  most  cruel  misfortune  that  can  befall  the  lonely  stu- 
dent, made  his  books  useless  to  him.  He  was  thrown  on  society 
for  all  his  amusement ;  and  in  society  his  good  breeding  and 
vivacity  made  him  always  welcome. 

By  the  rising  men  of  letters  he  was  considered  not  as  a  rival,  but 
as  a  classic.  He  had  left  their  arena ;  he  never  measured  his 
strength  with  them  ;  and  he  was  always  loud  in  applause  of  their 
exertions.  They  could,  therefore,  entertain  no  jealousy  of  him, 
and  thought  no  more  of  detracting  from  his  fame  than  of  carping 
at  the  great  men  who  had  been  lying  a  hundred  years  in  Poets' 
Corner.  Even  the  inmates  of  Grub  Street,  even  the  heroes  of  the 
Dunciad,  were  for  once  just  to  living  merit.  There  can  be  no 
stronger  illustration  of  the  estimation  in  which  Congreve  was  held 
than  the  fact  that  the  English  Iliad,  a  work  which  appeared  with 
more  splendid  auspices  than  any  other  in  our  language,  was  dedi- 
cated to  him.  There  was  not  a  duke  in  the  kingdom  who  would 
not  have  been  proud  of  such  a  compliment.  Dr.  Johnson  ex- 
presses great  admiration  for  the  independence  of  spirit  which 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL   ESSAYS.  667 

Pope  showed  on  this  occasion.  "  He  passed  over  peers  and  states- 
men to  inscribe  his  Iliad  to  Congreve,  with  a  magnanimity  of 
which  the  praise  had  been  complete,  had  his  friend's  virtue  been 
equal  to  his  wit.  Why  he  was  chosen  for  so  great  an  honour,  it  is 
not  now  possible  to  know."  It  is  certainly  impossible  to  know ; 
yet  we  think  it  is  possible  to  guess.  The  translation  of  the  Iliad 
had  been  zealously  befriended  by  men  of  all  political  opinions. 
The  poet  who,  at  an  early  age,  had  been  raised  to  affluence  by  the 
emulous  liberality  of  Whigs  and  Tories,  could  not  with  propriety 
inscribe  to  a  chief  of  either  party  a  work  which  had  been  munifi- 
cently patronised  by  both.  It  was  necessary  to  find  some  person 
who  was  at  once  eminent  and  neutral.  It  was  therefore  necessary 
to  pass  over  peers  and  statesmen.  Congreve  had  a  high  name  in 
letters.  He  had  a  high  name  in  aristocratic  circles.  He  lived  on 
terms  of  civility  with  men  of  all  parties.  By  a  courtesy  paid  to 
him,  neither  the  ministers  nor  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  could 
be  offended. 

The  singular  affectation  which  had  from  the  first  been  charac- 
teristic of  Congreve  grew  stronger  and  stronger  as  he  advanced  in 
life.  At  last  it  became  disagreeable  to  him  to  hear  his  own  come- 
dies praised.  Voltaire,  whose  soul  was  burnt  up  by  the  raging 
desire  for  literary  renown,  was  half  puzzled  and  half  disgusted  by 
what  he  saw,  during  his  visit  to  England,  of  this  extraordinary 
whim.  Congreve  disclaimed  the  character  of  a  poet,  declared 
that  his  plays  were  trifles  produced  in  an  idle  hour,  and  begged 
that  Voltaire  would  consider  him  merely  as  a  gentleman.  "  If 
you  had  been  merely  a  gentleman,"  said  Voltaire,  "  I  should  not 
have  come  to  see  you." 

Congreve  was  not  a  man  of  warm  affections.  Domestic  ties  he 
had  none ;  and  in  the  temporary  connections  which  he  formed 
with  a  succession  of  beauties  from  the  green-room  his  heart  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  interested.  Of  all  his  attachments  that 
to  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  lasted  the  longest  and  was  the  most  celebrated. 
This  charming  actress,  who  was,  during  many  years,  the  idol  of  all 
London,  whose  face  caused  the  fatal  broil  in  which  Mountfort  fell, 


668  THOMAS  BASING  TON  MACAULAY. 

and  for  which  Lord  Mohun  was  tried  by  the  Peers,  and  to  whom 
the  Earl  of  Scarsdale  was  said  to  have  made  honourable  addresses, 
had  conducted  herself,  in  very  trying  circumstances,  with  extraor- 
dinary discretion.  Congreve  at  length  became  her  confidential 
friend.  They  constantly  rode  out  together  and  dined  together. 
Some  people  said  that  she  was  his  mistress,  and  others  that  she 
would  soon  be  his  wife.  He  was  at  last  drawn  away  from  her  by 
the  influence  of  a  wealthier  and  haughtier  beauty.  Henrietta, 
daughter  of  the  great  Marlborough,  and  Countess  of  Godolphin, 
had,  on  her  father's  death,  succeeded  to  his  dukedom,  and  to  the 
greater  part  of  his  immense  property.  Her  husband  was  an  insig- 
nificant man,  of  whom  Lord  Chesterfield  said  that  he  came  to  the 
House  of  Peers  only  to  sleep,  and  that  he  might  as  well  sleep  on 
the  right  as  on  the  left  of  the  woolsack.  Between  the  Duchess 
and  Congreve  sprang  up  a  most  eccentric  friendship.  He  had  a 
seat  every  day  at  her  table,  and  assisted  in  the  direction  of  her 
concerts.  That  malignant  old  beldame,  the  Dowager  Duchess 
Sarah,  who  had  quarrelled  with  her  daughter  as  she  had  quarrelled 
with  everybody  else,  affected  to  suspect  that  there  was  something 
wrong.  But  the  world  in  general  appears  to  have  thought  that  a 
great  lady  might,  without  any  imputation  on  her  character,  pay 
marked  attention  to  a  man  of  eminent  genius  who  was  near  sixty 
years  old,  who  was  still  older  in  appearance  and  in  constitution, 
who  was  confined  to  his  chair  by  gout,  and  who  was  unable  to  read 
from  blindness. 

In  the  summer  of  1728,  Congreve  was  ordered  to  try  the  Bath 
waters.  During  his  excursion  he  was  overturned  in  his  chariot, 
and  received  some  severe  internal  injury  from  which  he  never  re- 
covered. He  came  back  to  London  in  a  dangerous  state,  com- 
plained constantly  of  a  pain  in  his  side  and  continued  to  sink,  till 
in  the  following  January  he  expired. 

He  left  ten  thousand  pounds,  saved  out  of  the  emoluments  of 
his  lucrative  places.  Johnson  says  that  this  money  ought  to  have 
gone  to  the  Congreve  family,  which  was  then  in  great  distress. 
Doctor  Young  and  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  two  gentlemen  who  seldom 


CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS.  669 

agree  with  each  other,  but  with  whom,  on  this  occasion,  we  are 
happy  to  agree,  think  that  it  ought  to  have  gone  to  Mrs.  Bracegirdle. 
Congreve  bequeathed  two  hundred  pounds  to  Mrs.  Bracegirdle, 
and  an  equal  sum  to  a  certain  Mrs.  Jellat ;  but  the  bulk  of  his  ac- 
cumulations went  to  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  in  whose  im- 
mense wealth  such  a  legacy  was  as  a  drop  in  the  bucket.  It 
might  have  raised  the  fallen  fortunes  of  a  Staffordshire  squire ;  it 
might  have  enabled  a  retired  actress  to  enjoy  every  comfort,  and, 
in  her  sense,  every  luxury.  But  it  was  hardly  sufficient  to  defray 
the  Duchess's  establishment  for  three  months. 

The  great  lady  buried  her  friend  with  a  pomp  seldom  seen  at 
the  funeral  of  poets.  The  corpse  lay  in  state  under  the  ancient 
roof  of  the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  and  was  interred  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  pall  was  borne  by  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater,  Lord 
Cobham,  the  Earl  of  Wilmington,  who  had  been  Speaker,  and  was 
afterwards  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  other  men  of  high  con- 
sideration. Her  Grace  laid  out  her  friend's  bequest  in  a  superb 
diamond  necklace,  which  she  wore  in  honour  of  him,  and,  if  report 
is  to  be  believed,  showed  her  regard  in  ways  much  more  extraor- 
dinary. It  is  said  that  a  statue  of  him  in  ivory,  which  moved  by 
clockwork,  was  placed  daily  at  her  table,  that  she  had  a  wax  doll 
made  in  imitation  of  him,  and  that  the  feet  of  the  doll  were  regu- 
larly blistered  and  anointed  by  the  doctors,  as  poor  Congreve's  feet 
had  been  when  he  suffered  from  the  gout.  A  monument  was  erected 
to  the  poet  in  Westminster  Abbey,  with  an  inscription  written  by 
the  Duchess  ;  and  Lord  Cobham  honoured  him  with  a  cenotaph, 
which  seems  to  us,  though  that  is  a  bold  word,  the  ugliest  and 
most  absurd  of  the  buildings  at  Stowe. 

We  have  said  that  Wycherley  was  a  worse  Congreve.  There 
was,  indeed,  a  remarkable  analogy  between  the  writings  and  lives 
of  these  two  men.  Both  were  gentlemen  liberally  educated.  Both 
led  town  lives,  and  knew  human  nature  only  as  it  appears  between 
Hyde  Park  and  the  Tower.  Both  were  men  of  wit.  Neither  had 
much  imagination.  Both  at  an  early  age  produced  lively  and 
profligate  comedies.  Both  retired  from  the  field  while  still  in  early 


670  THOMAS  BAB  ING  TON  MACAULAY. 

manhood,  and  owed  to  their  youthful  achievements  in  literature 
whatever  consideration  they  enjoyed  in  later  life.  Both,  after  they 
had  ceased  to  write  for  the  stage,  published  volumes  of  miscella- 
nies which  did  little  credit  either  to  their  talents  or  to  their  morals. 
Both,  during  their  declining  years,  hung  loose  upon  society ;  and 
both,  in  their  last  moments,  made  eccentric  and  unjustifiable  dis- 
positions of  their  estates. 

But  in  every  point  Congreve  maintained  his  superiority  to  Wych- 
erley.  Wycherley  had  wit ;  but  the  wit  of  Congreve  far  outshines 
that  of  every  comic  writer,  except  Sheridan,  who  has  arisen  within 
the  last  two  centuries.  Congreve  had  not,  in  a  large  measure,  the 
poetical  faculty ;  but  compared  with  Wycherley  he  might  be  called 
a  great  poet.  Wycherley  had  some  knowledge  of  books ;  but 
Congreve  was  a  man  of  real  learning.  Congreve's  offences  against 
decorum,  though  highly  culpable,  were  not  so  gross  as  those  of 
Wycherley ;  nor  did  Congreve,  like  Wycherley,  exhibit  to  the 
world  the  deplorable  spectacle  of  a  licentious  dotage.  Congreve 
died  in  the  enjoyment  of  high  consideration  ;  Wycherley,  forgotten 
or  despised.  Congreve's  will  was  absurd  and  capricious ;  but 
Wycherley's  last  actions  appear  to  have  been  prompted  by  obdu- 
rate malignity. 

Here,  at  least  for  the  present,  we  must  stop.  Vanbrugh  and 
Farquhar  are  not  men  to  be  hastily  dismissed,  and  we  have  not 
left  ourselves  space  to  do  them  justice. 


XXXIII. 

THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

(1795-1881.) 

1.    CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

BIOGRAPHY.1 
[Written  in  1832.] 

MAN'S  sociality  of  nature  evinces  itself,  in  spite  of  all  that  can 
be  said,  with  abundant  evidence  by  this  one  fact,  were  there  no 
other :  the  unspeakable  delight  he  takes  in  Biography.  It  is 
written,  "The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man"  ;  to  which  study, 
let  us  candidly  admit,  he,  by  true  or  by  false  methods,  applies 
himself,  nothing  loath.  "  Man  is  perennially  interesting  to  man ; 
nay,  if  we  look  strictly  to  it,  there  is  nothing  else  interesting." 
How  inexpressibly  comfortable  to  know  our  fellow-creature ;  to 
see  into  him,  understand  his  goings  forth,  decipher  the  whole 
heart  of  his  mystery :  nay,  not  only  to  see  into  him,  but  even  to 
see  out  of  him,  to  view  the  world  altogether  as  he  views  it ;  so 
that  we  can  theoretically  construe  him,  and  could  almost  practi- 
cally personate  him ;  and  do  now  thoroughly  discern  both  what 
manner  of  man  he  is,  and  what  manner  of  thing  he  has  got  to 
work  on  and  live  on  ! 

A  scientific  interest  and  a  poetic  one  alike  inspire  us  in  this 
manner.  A  scientific :  because  every  mortal  has  a  Problem  of 
Existence  set  before  him,  which,  were  it  only,  what  for  the  most 

1  From  Eraser's  Magazine  for  April,  1832.  First  essay  on  Boswcirs  Life  of 
Johnson. 

671 


672  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

it  is,  the  Problem  of  keeping  soul  and  body  together,  must  be  to  a 
certain  extent  original,  unlike  every  other ;  and  yet,  at  the  same 
time,  so  like  every  other ;  like  our  own,  therefore  :  instructive, 
moreover,  since  we  also  are  indentured  to  live.  A  poetic  interest 
still  more ;  for  precisely  this  same  struggle  of  human  Free-will 
against  material  Necessity,  which  every  man's  Life,  by  the  mere 
circumstance  that  the  man  continues  alive,  will  more  or  less  vic- 
toriously exhibit,  —  is  that  which  above  all  else,  or  rather  inclusive 
of  all  else,  calls  the  Sympathy  of  mortal  hearts  into  action ;  and 
whether  as  acted,  or  as  represented  and  written  of,  not  only  is 
Poetry,  but  is  the  sole  Poetry  possible.  Borne  onwards  by  which 
two  all-embracing  interests,  may  the  earnest  Lover  of  Biography 
expand  himself  on  all  sides,  and  indefinitely  enrich  himself. 
Looking  with  the  eyes  of  every  new  neighbour,  he  can  discern  a 
new  world  different  from  each  :  feeling  with  the  heart  of  every 
neighbour,  he  lives  with  every  neighbour's  life,  even  as  with  his  own. 
Of  these  millions  of  living  men  each  individual  is  a  mirror  to  us  : 
a  mirror  both  scientific  and  poetic ;  or,  if  you  will,  both  natural 
and  magical ;  —  from  which  one  would  so  gladly  draw  aside  the 
gauze  veil ;  and,  peering  therein,  discern  the  image  of  his  own 
natural  face,  and  the  supernatural  secrets  that  prophetically  lie 
under  the  same  ! 

Observe,  accordingly,  to  what  extent,  in  the  actual  course  of 
things,  this  business  of  biography  is  practised  and  relished.  De- 
fine to  thyself,  judicious  Reader,  the  real  significance  of  these 
phenomena,  named  Gossip,  Egotism,  Personal  Narrative,  (miracu- 
lous or  not,)  Scandal,  Raillery,  Slander,  and  such  like ;  the  sum- 
total  of  which  (with  some  fractional  addition  of  a  better  ingredient, 
generally  too  small  to  be  noticeable)  constitutes  that  other  grand 
phenomenon  still  called  "  Conversation."  Do  they  not  mean 
wholly :  Biography  and  Autobiography  ?  Not  only  in  the  com- 
mon Speech  of  men ;  but  in  all  Art,  too,  which  is  or  should  be 
the  concentrated  and  conserved  essence  of  what  men  can  speak 
and  show,  Biography  is  almost  the  one  thing  needful. 

Even   in  the  highest  works  of  Art  our  interest,  as  the  critics 


CRITICAL   AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  673 

complain,  is  too  apt  to  be  strongly  or  even  mainly  of  a  Biographic 
sort.  In  the  Art,  we  can  nowise  forget  the  Artist :  while  looking 
on  the  Transfiguration,  while  studying  the  Iliad,  we  ever  strive  to 
figure  to  ourselves  what  spirit  dwelt  in  Raphael ;  what  a  head  was 
that  of  Homer,  wherein,  woven  of  Elysian  light  and  Tartarean 
gloom,  that  old  world  fashioned  itself  together,  of  which  these 
written  Greek  characters  are  but  a  feeble  though  perennial  copy. 
The  Painter  and  the  Singer  are  present  to  us ;  we  partially  and  for 
the  time  become  the  very  Painter  and  the  very  Singer,  while  we 
enjoy  the  Picture  and  the  Song.  Perhaps,  too,  let  the  critic  say 
what  he  will,  this  is  the  highest  enjoyment,  the  clearest  recognition, 
we  can  have  of  these.  Art  indeed  is  Art ;  yet  Man  also  is  Man. 
Had  the  Transfiguration  been  painted  without  human  hand,  had 
it  grown  merely  on  the  canvas,  say  by  atmospheric  influences,  as 
lichen-pictures  do  on  rocks,  —  it  were  a  grand  Picture  doubtless; 
yet  nothing  like  so  grand  as  the  Picture,  which,  on  opening  our 
eyes,  we  everywhere  in  Heaven  and  in  Earth  see  painted ;  and 
everywhere  pass  over  with  indifference,  —  because  the  painter  was 
not  a  Man.  Think  of  this;  much  lies  in  it.  The  Vatican  is 
great ;  yet  poor  to  Chimborazo  or  the  Peak  of  Teneriffe ;  its 
dome  is  but  a  foolish  Big-endian  or  Little-endian  chip  of  an  egg- 
shell, compared  with  that  star-fretted  Dome  where  Arcturus  and 
Orion  glance  forever;  which  latter,  notwithstanding,  who  looks 
at,  save  perhaps  some  necessitous  star-gazer  bent  to  make  Alma- 
nacs, some  thick-quilted  watchman,  to  see  what  weather  it  will 
prove  ?  The  Biographic  interest  is  wanting  :  no  Michael  Angelo 
was  He  who  built  that  "Temple  of  Immensity"  ;  therefore  do  we, 
pitiful  Littlenesses  as  we  are,  turn  rather  to  wonder  and  to  wor- 
ship in  the  little  toy-box  of  a  Temple  built  by  our  like. 

Still  more  decisively,  still  more  exclusively  does  the  Biographic 
interest  manifest  itself,  as  we  descend  into  lower  regions  of 
spiritual  communication ;  through  the  whole  range  of  what  is 
called  Literature.  Of  History,  for  example,  the  most  honoured, 
if  not  honourable  species  of  composition,  is  not  the  whole  pur- 
port biographic  ?  "  History,"  it  has  been  said,  "  is  the  essence  of 


674  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

innumerable  Biographies."  Such,  at  least,  it  should  be  :  whether 
it  is,  might  admit  of  question.  But,  in  any  case,  what  hope  have 
we  in  turning  over  these  old  interminable  Chronicles,  with  their 
garrulities  and  insipidities ;  or  still  worse,  in  patiently  examining 
those  modern  Narrations,  of  the  Philosophic  kind,  where  "Phi- 
losophy, teaching  by  Experience,"  has  to  sit  like  owl  on  house- 
top, seeing  nothing,  understanding  nothing,  uttering  only,  with  sol- 
emnity enough,  her  perpetual  most  wearisome  hoo-hoo :  —  what 
hope  have  we,  except  the  for  most  part  fallacious  one  of  gaining 
some  acquaintance  with  our  fellow- creatures,  though  dead  and 
vanished,  yet  dear  to  us ;  how  they  got  along  in  those  old  days, 
suffering  and  doing;  to  what  extent,  and  under  what  circum- 
stances, they  resisted  the  Devil  and  triumphed  over  him,  or 
struck  their  colours  to  him,  and  were  trodden  under  foot  by  him ; 
how,  in  short,  the  perennial  Battle  went,  which  men  name  Life, 
which  we  also  in  these  new  days,  with  indifferent  fortune,  have 
to  fight,  and  must  bequeath  to  our  sons  and  grandsons  to  go  on 
fighting,  —  till  the  Enemy  one  day  be  quite  vanished  and  abolished, 
or  else  the  great  Night  sink  and  part  the  combatants ;  and  thus, 
either  by  some  Millennium  or  some  new  Noah's  Deluge,  the 
volume  of  Universal  History  wind  itself  up  !  Other  hope,  in 
studying  such  Books,  we  have  none  :  and  that  it  is  a  deceitful 
hope,  who  that  has  tried  knows  not?  A  feast  of  widest  Bio- 
graphic insight  is  spread  for  us ;  we  enter  full  of  hungry  anticipa- 
tion :  alas  !  like  so  many  other  feasts,  which  life  invites  us  to,  a 
mere  Ossian's  "feast  of  shells"  —  the  food  and  liquor  being  all 
emptied  out  and  clean  gone,  and  only  the  vacant  dishes  and  de- 
ceitful emblems  thereof  left !  Your  modern  Historical  Restaura- 
teurs are  indeed  little  better  than  high-priests  of  Famine ;  that 
keep  choicest  china  dinner-sets,  only  no  dinner  to  serve  therein. 
Yet  such  is  our  Biographical  appetite,  we  run  trying  from  shop  to 
shop,  with  ever  new  hope ;  and,  unless  we  could  set  the  wind, 
with  ever  new  disappointment. 

Again,  consider  the  whole  class  of  Fictitious  Narratives ;  from 
the  highest  category  of  epic  or  dramatic  Poetry  in  Shakspeare  and 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  675 

Homer,  down  to  the  lowest  of  froth  Prose  in  the  Fashionable 
Novel.  What  are  all  these  but  so  many  mimic  Biographies? 
Attempts,  here  by  an  inspired  Speaker,  there  by  an  uninspired 
Babbler,  to  deliver  himself,  more  or  less  ineffectually,  of  the  grand 
secret  wherewith  all  hearts  labour  oppressed  :  The  significance 
of  Man's  Life  ;  —  which  deliverance,  even  as  traced  in  the  un- 
furnished head,  and  printed  at  the  Minerva  Press,  finds  readers. 
For,  observe,  though  there  is  a  greatest  Fool,  as  a  superlative  in 
every  kind ;  and  the  most  Foolish  man  in  the  Earth  is  now  in- 
dubitably living  and  breathing,  and  did  this  morning  or  lately  eat 
breakfast,  and  is  even  now  digesting  the  same  ;  and  looks  out  on  the 
world  with  his  dim  horn-eyes,  and  inwardly  forms  some  unspeak- 
able theory  thereof :  yet  where  shall  the  authentically  Existing  be 
personally  met  with  !  Can  one  of  us,  otherwise  than  by  guess, 
know  that  we  have  got  sight  of  him,  have  orally  communed  with 
him?  To  take  even  the  narrower  sphere  of  this  our  English 
Metropolis,  can  any  one  confidently  say  to  himself,  that  he  has 
conversed  with  the  identical,  individual  Stupidest  man  now  extant 
in  London?  No  one.  Deep  as  we  dive  in  the  Profound,  there 
is  ever  a  new  depth  opens :  where  the  ultimate  bottom  may  lie, 
through  what  new  scenes  of  being  we  must  pass  before  reach- 
ing it  (except  that  we  know  it  does  lie  somewhere,  and  might 
by  human  faculty  and  opportunity  be  reached),  is  altogether  a 
mystery  to  us.  Strange,  tantalizing  pursuit !  We  have  the  fullest 
assurance,  not  only  that  there  is  a  Stupidest  of  London  men 
actually  resident,  with  bed  and  board  of  some  kind,  in  London ; 
but  that  several  persons  have  been  or  perhaps  are  now  speaking 
face  to  face  with  him  :  while  for  us,  chase  it  as  we  may,  such 
scientific  blessedness  will  too  probably  be  for  ever  denied  !  —  But 
the  thing  we  meant  to  enforce  was  this  comfortable  fact,  that  no 
known  Head  was  so  wooden,  but  there  might  be  other  heads  to 
which  it  were  a  genius  and  Friar  Bacon's  Oracle.  Of  no  given 
Book,  not  even  of  a  Fashionable  Novel,  can  you  predicate  with 
certainty  that  its  vacuity  is  absolute ;  that  there  are  not  other 
vacuities  which  shall  partially  replenish  themselves  therefrom,  and 


676  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

esteem  it  a  plemun.  How  knowest  thou,  may  the  distressed  Nov- 
elwright  exclaim,  that  I,  here  where  I  sit,  am  the  Foolishest  of 
existing  mortals ;  that  this  my  Long-ear  of  a  Fictitious  Biography 
shall  not  find  one  and  the  other,  into  whose  still  longer  ears  it 
may  be  the  means,  under  Providence,  of  instilling  somewhat? 
We  answer,  None  knows,  none  can  certainly  know  :  therefore,  write 
on,  worthy  Brother,  even  as  thou  canst,  as  it  has  been  given  thee. 

Here,  however,  in  regard  to  "  Fictitious  Biographies,"  and 
much  other  matter  of  like  sort,  which  the  greener  mind  in  these 
days  inditeth,  we  may  as  well  insert  some  singular  sentences  on  the 
importance  and  significance  of  Reality,  as  they  stand  written  for 
us  in  Professor  Gottfried  Sauerteig's  j&stkducke  Springwurzeln : 2 
a  Work,  perhaps,  as  yet  new  to  most  English  readers.  The  Profes- 
sor and  Doctor  is  not  a  man  whom  we  can  praise  without  reser- 
vation;  neither  shall  we  say  that  his-  Springwurzeln  (a  sort  of 
magical  pick-locks,  as  he  affectedly  names  them)  are  adequate 
to  "  start "  every  bolt  that  locks  up  an  aesthetic  mystery ;  never- 
theless, in  his  crabbed,  one-sided  way,  he  sometimes  hits  masses 
of  the  truth.  We  endeavour  to  translate  faithfully,  and  trust  the 
reader  will  find  it  worth  serious  perusal : 

"The  significance,  even  for  poetic  purposes,"  says  Sauerteig, 
"  that  lies  in  REALITY,  is  too  apt  to  escape  us  ;  is  perhaps  only  now 
beginning  to  be  discerned.  When  we  named  Rousseau's  Confes- 
sions an  elegiaco-didactic  Poem,  we  meant  more  than  an  empty 
figure  of  speech  ;  we  meant  an  historical  scientific  fact. 

"  Fiction,  while  the  feigner  of  it  knows  that  he  is  feigning,  par- 
takes, more  than  we  suspect,  of  the  nature  of  lying;  and  has  ever 
an,  in  some  degree,  unsatisfactory  character.  All  Mythologies 
were  once  Philosophies;  were  believed:  the  Epic  Poems  of  old 
time,  so  long  as  they  continued  epic,  and  had  any  complete  im- 
pressiveness,  were  Histories,  and  understood  to  be  narratives  of 
facts.  In  so  far  as  Homer  employed  his  gods  as  mere  orna- 
mental fringes,  and  had  not  himself,  or  at  least  did  not  expect  his 
hearers  to  have,  a  belief  that  they  were  real  agents  in  those  antique 

2  (esthetic  primitive  roots. 


CRITICAL   AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  677 

doings ;  so  far  did  he  fail  to  be  genuine  ;  so  far  was  he  a  partially 
hollow  and  false  cringer ;  and  sang  to  please  only  a  portion  of 
man's  mind,  not  the  whole  thereof. 

"  Imagination  is,  after  all,  but  a  poor  matter  when  it  must  part 
company  with  Understanding,  and  .even  front  it  hostilely  in  flat 
contradiction.  Our  mind  is  divided  in  twain :  there  is  contest ; 
wherein  that  which  is  weaker  must  needs  come  to  the  worse.  Now 
of  all  feelings,  states,  principles,  call  it  what  you  will,  in  man's  mind, 
is  not  Belief  the  clearest,  strongest ;  against  which  all  others  con- 
tend in  vain  ?  Belief  is,  indeed,  the  beginning  and  first  condition 
of  all  spiritual  Force  whatsoever :  only  in  so  far  as  Imagination, 
were  it  but  momentarily,  is  believed,  can  there  be  any  use  or  mean- 
ing in  it,  any  enjoyment  of  it.  And  what  is  momentary  Belief? 
The  enjoyment  of  a  moment.  Whereas  a  perennial  Belief  were 
enjoyment  perennially,  and  with  the  whole  united  soul. 

"  It  is  thus  that  I  judge  of  the  Supernatural  in  an  Epic  Poem  ; 
and  would  say,  the  instant  it  had  ceased  to  be  authentically  super- 
natural, and  become  what  you  call  Machinery;  sweep  it  out  of 
sight  (schaff  es  mir  vom  Halse 3) !  Of  a  truth,  that  same  '  Machin- 
ery,' about  which  the  critics  make  such  hubbub,  was  well  named 
Machinery ;  for  it  is  in  very  deed  mechanical,  nowise  inspired  or 
poetical.  Neither  for  us  is  there  the  smallest  aesthetic  enjoyment 
in  it ;  save  only  in  this  way  :  that  we  believe  it  to  have  been  believed, 
—  by  the  Singer  or  his  Hearers  ;  into  whose  case  we  now  laboriously 
struggle  to  transport  ourselves ;  and  so,  with  stinted  enough  result, 
catch  some  reflex  of  the  Reality,  which  for  them  was  wholly  real, 
and  visible  face  to  face.  Whenever  it  has  come  so  far  that  your 
'  Machinery '  is  avowedly  mechanical  and  unbelieved,  —  what  is  it 
else,  if  we  dare  tell  ourselves  the  truth,  but  a  miserable  meaning- 
less Deception  kept-up  by  old  use  and  wont  alone  ?  If  the  gods 
of  an  Iliad  are  to  us  no  longer  authentic  Shapes  of  Terror,  heart- 
stirring,  heart-appalling,  but  only  vague  glittering  Shadows,  —  what 
must  the  dead  Pagan  gods  of  an  Epigoniad  be,  the  dead  living 
Pagan-Christian  gods  of  a  Lusiad,  the  concrete-abstract,  evangeli- 

8  put  it  off  my  neck. 


678  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

cal- metaphysical  gods  of  a  Paradise  Lost?  Superannuated  lum- 
ber !  Cast  raiment,  at  best ;  in  which  some  poor  mime,  strutting 
and  swaggering,  may  or  may  not  set  forth  new  noble  Human  Feel- 
ings (again  a  Reality),  and  so  secure,  or  not  secure,  our  pardon 
of  such  hoydenish  making,  —  for  which,  in  any  case,  he  has  a 
pardon  to  ask. 

"  True  enough,  none  but  the  earliest  Epic  Poems  can  claim  this 
distinction  of  entire  credibility,  of  Reality  :  after  an  Iliad,  a  Shas- 
ter,  a  Koran,  and  other  the  like  primitive  performances,  the  rest 
seem,  by  this  rule  of  mine,  to  be  altogether  excluded  from  the  list. 
Accordingly,  what  are  all  the  rest,  from  Virgil's  sEneid  downwards, 
in  comparison  ?  Frosty,  artificial,  heterogeneous  things  ;  more  of 
gumflowers  than  of  roses ;  at  best,  of  the  two  mixed  incoherently 
together :  to  some  of  which,  indeed,  it  were  hard  to  deny  the  title 
of  Poems  ;  yet  to  no  one  of  which  can  that  title  belong  in  any  sense 
even  resembling  the  old  high  one  it,  in  those  old  days,  conveyed, 
—  when  the  epithet  '  divine  '  or  '  sacred '  as  applied  to  the  uttered 
Word  of  man,  was  not  a  vain  metaphor,  a  vain  sound,  but  a  real 
name  with  meaning.  Thus,  too,  the  farther  we  recede  from  those 
early  days,  when  Poetry,  as  true  Poetry  is  always,  was  still  sacred 
or  divine,  and  inspired  (what  ours,  in  great  part,  only  pretends  to 
be),  —  the  more  impossible  becomes  it  to  produce  any,  we  say  not 
true  Poetry,  but  tolerable  semblance  of  such;  the  hollo wer,  in 
particular,  grow  all  manner  of  Epics ;  till  at  length,  as  in  this  gen- 
eration, the  very  name  of  Epic  sets  men  a-yawning,  the  announce- 
ment of  a  new  Epic  is  received  as  a  public  calamity. 

"  But  what  if  the  impossible  being  once  for  all  quite  discarded, 
the  probable  be  well  adhered  to  ;  how  stands  it  with  fiction  then  ? 
Why,  then,  I  would  say,  the  evil  is  much  mended,  but  nowise  com- 
pletely cured.  We  have  then,  in  place  of  the  wholly  dead  modern 
Epic,  the  partially  living  modern  Novel ;  to  which  latter  it  is  much 
easier  to  lend  that  above-mentioned,  so  essential  '  momentary  cre- 
dence,' than  to  the  former :  indeed  infinitely  easier :  for  the 
former  being  flatly  incredible,  no  mortal  can  for  a  moment  credit 
it,  for  a  moment  enjoy  it.  Thus,  here  and  there,  a  Tom  Jones, 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  679 

a  Meister,  a.  Crusoe,  will  yield  no  little  solacement  to  the  minds  of 
men :  though  still  immeasurably  less  than  a  Reality  would,  were 
the  significance  thereof  as  impressively  unfolded,  were  the  genius 
that  could  so  unfold  it  once  given  us  by  the  kind  Heavens.  Neither 
say  thou  that  proper  Realities  are  wanting :  for  Man's  Life,  now 
as  of  old,  is  the  genuine  work  of  God ;  wherever  there  is  a  Man,  a 
God  also  is  revealed,  and  all  that  is  God-like  :  a  whole  epitome  of 
the  Infinite,  with  its  meanings,  lies  enfolded  in  the  Life  of  every 
Man.  Only,  alas,  that  the  Seer  to  discern  this  same  God-like,  and 
with  fit  utterance  unfold  it  for  us,  is  wanting,  and  may  long  be 
wanting  ! 

"  Nay,  a  question  arises  on  us  here,  wherein  the  whole  German 
reading-world  will  eagerly  join  :  Whether  man  can  any  longer  be 
so  interested  in  the  spoken  Word,  as  he  often  was  in  those  pro- 
vincial days,  when,  rapt  away  by  its  inscrutable  power,  he  pro- 
nounced it,  in  such  dialect  as  he  had,  to  be  transcendental,  (to 
transcend  all  measure,)  to  be  sacred,  prophetic,  and  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  God?  For  myself,  I  (ich  meines  Ortes,y  by  faith  or  by 
insight,  do  heartily  understand  that  the  answer  to  such  question 
will  be,  Yea  !  For  never,  that  I  could  in  searching  find  out,  has  Man 
been,  by  Time  which  devours  so  much,  deprivated  of  any  faculty 
whatsoever  that  he  in  any  era  was  possessed  of.  To  my  seeming, 
the  babe  born  yesterday  has  all  the  organs  of  Body,  Soul,  and 
Spirit,  and  in  exactly  the  same  combination  and  entireness,  that 
the  oldest  Pelasgic  Greek,  or  Mesopotamian  Patriarch,  or  Father 
Adam  himself  could  boast  of.  Ten  fingers,  one  heart  with  venous 
and  arterial  blood  therein,  still  belong  to  man  that  is  born  of 
woman  :  when  did  he  lose  any  of  his  spiritual  Endowments  either  : 
above  all,  his  highest  spiritual  Endowment,  that  of  revealing 
Poetic  Beauty,  and  of  adequately  receiving  the  same  ?  Not  the 
material,  not  the  susceptibility  is  wanting ;  only  the  Poet,  or  long 
series  of  Poets,  to  work  on  these.  True,  alas  too  true,  the  Poet 
is  still  utterly  wanting,  or  all  but  utterly:  nevertheless  have  we 
not  centuries  enough  before  us  to  produce  him  in  ?  Him  and 
*  as  for  me,  lit.,  I  in  my  place. 


680  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

much  else  !  —  I,  for  the  present,  will  but  predict  that  chiefly  by 
working  more  and  more  on  REALITY,  and  evolving  more  and  more 
wisely  its  inexhaustible  meanings  ;  and,  in  brief,  speaking  forth 
in  fit  utterance  whatsoever  our  whole  soul  believes,  and  ceasing  to 
speak  forth  what  things  soever  our  whole  soul  does  not  believe,  — 
will  this  high  emprise  be  accomplished,  or  approximated  to." 

These  notable,  and  not  unfounded,  though  partial  and  deep-see- 
ing rather  than  wzVfe-seeing  observations  on  the  great  import  of 
REALITY,  considered  even  as  a  poetic  material,  we  have  inserted 
the  more  willingly  because  a  transient  feeling  to  the  same  purpose 
may  often  have  suggested  itself  to  many  readers ;  and  on  the 
whole,  it  is  good  that  every  reader  and  every  writer  understand, 
with  all  intensity  of  conviction,  what  quite  infinite  worth  lies  in 
Truth  ;  how  all-pervading,  omnipotent,  in  man's  mind,  is  the  thing 
we  name  Belief,  For  the  rest,  Herr  Sauerteig,  though  one-sided, 
on  this  matter  of  Reality,  seems  heartily  persuaded,  and  is  not 
perhaps  so  ignorant  as  he  looks.  It  cannot  be  unknown  to  him, 
for  example,  what  noise  is  made  about  "  Invention " ;  what  a 
supreme  rank  this  faculty  is  reckoned  to  hold  in  the  poetic  endow- 
ment. Great  truly  is  Invention ;  nevertheless,  that  is  but  a  poor 
exercise  of  it  with  which  Belief  is  not  concerned.  "  An  Irishman 
with  whiskey  in  his  head,"  as  poor  Byron  said,  will  invent  you,  in 
this  kind,  till  there  is  enough,  and  to  spare.  Nay,  perhaps,  if  we 
consider  well,  the  highest  exercise  of  Invention  has,  in  very  deed, 
nothing  to  do  with  Fiction ;  but  is  an  invention  of  new  Truth,  what 
we  can  call  a  Revelation  ;  which  last  does  undoubtedly  transcend 
all  other  poetic  efforts,  nor  can  Herr  Sauerteig  be  too  loud  in  its 
praises.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  such  effort  is  still  possi- 
ble for  man,  Herr  Sauerteig  and  the  bulk  of  the  world  are  proba- 
bly at  issue,  —  and  will  probably  continue  so  till  that  same  "  Reve- 
lation," or  new  "  Invention  of  Reality,"  of  the  sort  he  desiderates, 
shall  itself  make  its  appearance. 

Meanwhile,  quitting  these  airy  regions,  let  any  one  bethink  him 
how  impressive  the  smallest  historical  fact  may  become,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  grandest  fictitious  event;  what  an  incalculable  force 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  681 

lies  for  us  in  this  consideration  :  The  Thing  which  I  here  hold 
imaged  in  my  mind  did  actually  occur ;  was,  in  very  truth,  an 
element  in  the  system  of  the  All,  whereof  I  too  form  part ;  had 
therefore,  and  has,  through  all  time,  an  authentic  being ;  is  not  a 
dream,  but  a  reality  !  We  ourselves  can  remember  reading,  in 
Lord  Clarendon?  with  feelings  perhaps  somehow  accidentally 
opened  to  it,  —  certainly  with  a  depth  of  impression  strange  to 
us  then  and  now,  —  that  insignificant-looking  passage,  where 
Charles,  after  the  battle  of  Worcester,  glides  down,  with  Squire 
Careless,  from  the  Royal  Oak,  at  night-fall,  being  hungry :  how 
"  making  a  shift  to  get  over  hedges  and  ditches,  after  walking  at 
least  eight  or  nine  miles,  which  were  the  most  grievous  to  the  King 
by  the  weight  of  his  boots  (for  he  could  not  put  them  off,  when  he 
cut  off  his  hair,  for  want  of  shoes),  before  morning  they  came  to 
a  poor  cottage,  the  owner  whereof,  being  a  Roman  Catholic,  was 
known  to  Careless'1  How  this  poor  drudge,  being  knocked  up 
from  his  snoring,  "  carried  them  into  a  little  barn  full  of  hay,  which 
was  a  better  lodging  than  he  had  for  himself";  and  by  and  by, 
not  without  difficulty,  brought  his  Majesty  "  a  piece  of  bread  and  a 
great  pot  of  butter-milk,"  saying  candidly  that  "  he  himself  lived  by 
his  daily  labour,  and  that  what  he  had  brought  him  was  the  fare 
he  and  his  wife  had  "  :  on  which  nourishing  diet  his  Majesty, 
"  staying  upon  the  haymow,"  feeds  thankfully  for  two  days ;  and 
then  departs,  under  new  guidance,  having  first  changed  clothes 
down  to  the  very  shirt  and  "  old  pair  of  shoes,"  with  his  landlord  ; 
and  so  as  worthy  Bunyan  has  it,  "  goes  on  his  way,  and  sees  him 
no  more."  Singular  enough  if  we  will  think  of  it !  This  then  was 
a  genuine  flesh-and-blood  Rustic  of  the  year  1651  :  he  did  actually 
swallow  bread  and  butter-milk  (not  having  ale  and  bacon),  and  do 
field-labour ;  with  these  hob-nailed  "  shoes  "  has  sprawled  through 
mud-roads  in  winter,  and,  jocund  or  not,  driven  his  team  a-field  in 
summer ;  he  made  bargains ;  had  chafferings  and  higglings,  now  a 
sore  heart,  now  a  glad  one  ;  was  born  ;  was  a  son,  was  a  father  ; 
—  toiled  in  many  ways,  being  forced  to  it,  till  the  strength  was  all 

6  History  of  the  Rebellion,  III.  625. 


682  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

worn  out  of  him :  and  then  lay  down  "  to  rest  his  galled  back," 
and  sleep  there  till  the  long-distant  morning  !  —  How  comes  it, 
that  he  alone  of  all  the  British  rustics  who  tilled  and  lived  with 
him,  on  whom  the  blessed  sun  on  that  same  "  fifth  day  of  Septem- 
ber" was  shining,  should  have  chanced  to  rise  on  us;  that  this 
poor  pair  of  clouted  Shoes,  out  of  the  million  million  hides  that  have 
been  tanned,  and  cut,  and  worn,  should  still  subsist,  and  hang  visi- 
bly together?  We  see  him  but  for  a  moment;  for  one  moment, 
the  blanket  of  the  Night  is  rent  asunder,  so  that  we  behold  and 
see,  and  then  closes  over  him  for  ever. 

So,  too,  in  some  BosweWs  Life  of  Johnson,  how  indelible,  and 
magically  bright  does  many  a  little  Reality  dwell  in  our  remem- 
brance !  There  is  no  need  that  the  personages  on  the  scene  be 
a  King  and  Clown;  that  the  scene  be  the  Forest  of  the  Royal 
Oak,  "  on  the  borders  of  Staffordshire  "• :  need  only  that  the  scene 
lie  on  this  old  firm  Earth  of  ours,  where  we  also  have  so  surpris- 
ingly arrived ;  that  the  personages  be  men,  and  seen  with  the  eyes 
of  a  man.  Foolish  enough,  how  some  slight,  perhaps  mean  and 
even  ugly  incident  —  if  real,  and  well  presented,  will  fix  itself  in  a 
susceptive  memory,  and  lie  ennobled  there  ;  silvered  over  with  the 
pale  cast  of  thought,  with  the  pathos  which  belongs  only  to  the 
Dead.  For  the  Past  is  all  holy  to  us ;  the  Dead  are  all  holy,  even 
they  that  were  base  and  wicked  while  alive.  Their  baseness  and 
wickedness  was  not  They,  was  but  the  heavy  unmanageable  Envi- 
ronment that  lay  round  them,  with  which  they  fought  unprevailing  : 
they  (the  ethereal  God-given  Force  that  dwelt  in  them,  and  was 
their  Self)  have  now  shuffled  off  that  heavy  Environment,  and  are 
free  and  pure  :  their  life-long  Battle,  go  how  it  might,  is  all  ended, 
with  many  wounds  or  with  fewer ;  they  have  been  recalled  from  it, 
and  the  once  harsh-jawing  battle-field  has  become  a  silent  awe- 
inspiring  Golgotha,  and  Gottesacker  (Field  of  God)  !  —  Boswell 
relates  this  in  itself  smallest  and  poorest  of  occurrences  :  "  As  we 
walked  along  the  Strand  to-night,  arm  in  arm,  a  woman  of  the  town 
accosted  us  in  the  usual  enticing  manner.  '  No,  no,  my  girl/  said 
Johnson ;  '  it  won't  do.'  He,  however,  did  not  treat  her  with  harsh- 


CRITICAL   AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  683 

ness,  and  we  talked  of  the  wretched  life  of  such  women."  Strange 
power  of  Reality  !  Not  even  this  poorest  of  occurrences,  but  now, 
after  seventy  years  are  come  and  gone,  has  a  meaning  for  us.  Do 
but  consider  that  it  is  true  ;  that  it  did  in  very  deed  occur  !  That 
unhappy  Outcast,  with  all  her  sins  and  woes,  her  lawless  de- 
sires, too  complex  mischances,  her  wailings  and  her  riotings,  has 
departed  utterly  :  alas  !  her  siren  finery  has  got  all  besmutched ; 
ground,  generations  since,  into  dust  and  smoke ;  of  her  degraded 
body,  and  whole  miserable  earthly  existence,  all  is  away  !  she  is  no 
longer  here,  but  far  from  us,  in  the  bosom  of  Eternity,  —  whence 
we  too  came,  whither  we  too  are  bound  !  Johnson  said,  "  No,  no, 
my  girl;  it  won't  do";  and  then  "we  talked";  —  and  herewith 
the  wretched  one,  seen  but  for  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  passes  on 
into  the  utter  Darkness.  No  high  Calista,6  that  ever  issued  from 
Story-teller's  brain,  will  impress  us  more  deeply  than  this  meanest 
of  the  mean ;  and  for  a  good  reason :  That  she  issued  from  the 
Maker  of  Men. 

It  is  well  worth  the  Artist's  while  to  examine  for  himself  what  it 
is  that  gives  such  pitiful  incidents  their  memorableness ;  his  aim 
likewise  is,  above  all  things,  to  be  memorable.  Half  the  effect,  we 
already  perceive,  depends  on  the  object,  on  its  being  real,  on  its 
being  really  seen.  The  other  half  will  depend  on  the  observer ; 
and  the  question  now  is  :  "  How  are  real  objects  to  be  so  seen  ;  on 
what  quality  of  observing,  or  of  style  in  describing,  does  this  so 
intense  pictorial  power  depend?"  Often  a  slight  circumstance 
contributes  curiously  to  the  result :  some  little,  and  perhaps  to 
appearance  accidental,  feature  is  presented  ;  a  light  gleam,  which 
instantaneously  excites  the  mind,  and  urges  it  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture, and  evolve  the  meaning  thereof  for  itself.  By  critics,  such 
light  gleams  and  their  almost  magical  influence  have  frequently 
been  noted  :  but  the  power  to  produce  such,  to  select  such  features 
as  will  produce  them,  is  generally  treated  as  a  knack,  or  trick  of  the 
trade,  a  secret  for  being  "  graphic  "  ;  whereas  these  magical  feats 
are,  in  truth,  rather  inspirations ;  and  the  gift  of  performing  them, 
6  "  A  celebrated  character  in  Rowe's  Fair  Penitent."  —  WHEELER. 


684  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

which  acts  unconsciously,  without  forethought,  and  as  if  by  nature 
alone,  is  properly  a  genius  for  description. 

One  grand,  invaluable  secret  there  is,  however,  which  includes  all 
the  rest,  and,  what  is  comfortable,  lies  clearly  in  every  man's  power  : 
To  have  an  open,  loving  heart,  and  what  follows  from  the  possession 
of  such  !  Truly  it  has  been  said,  emphatically  in  these  days  ought 
it  to  be  repeated  :  A  loving  Heart  is  the  beginning  of  all  Knowl- 
edge. This  it  is  that  opens  the  whole  mind,  quickens  every  faculty 
of  the  intellect  to  do  its  fit  work,  that  of  knowing;  and  therefrom, 
by  sure  consequence,  of  vividly  littering  forth.  Other  secret  for 
being  "graphic"  is  there  none,  worth  having:  but  this  is  an  all- 
sufficient  one.  See,  for  example,  what  a  small  Boswell  can  do  ! 
Hereby,  indeed,  is  the  whole  man  made  a  living  mirror,  wherein 
the  wonders  of  this  ever-wonderful  Universe  are,  in  their  true  light 
(which  is  ever  a  magical,  miraculous  one)  represented,  and  re- 
flected back  on  us.  It  has  been  said,  "  the  heart  sees  farther  than 
the  head  "  :  but,  indeed,  without  the  seeing  heart  there  is  no  true 
seeing  for  the  head  so  much  as  possible ;  all  is  mere  oversight, 
hallucination  and  vain  superficial  phantasmagoria,  which  can  per- 
manently profit  no  one. 

Here,  too,  may  we  not  pause  for  an  instant,  and  make  a  prac- 
tical reflection?  Considering  the  multitude  of  mortals  that  handle 
the  Pen  in  these  days,  and  can  mostly  spell,  and  write  without 
glaring  violations  of  grammar,  the  question  naturally  arises :  How 
is  it,  then,  that  no  Work  proceeds  from  them,  bearing  any  stamp 
of  authenticity  and  permanence  ;  of  worth  for  more  than  one  day  ? 
Ship-loads  of  Fashionable  Novels,  Sentimental  Rhymes,  Tragedies, 
Farces,  Diaries  of  Travel,  Tales  by  flood  and  field,  are  swallowed 
monthly  into  the  bottomless  Pool ;  still  does  the  Press  toil :  innu- 
merable Paper-makers,  Compositors,  Printers'  Devils,  Bookbinders, 
and  Hawkers  grown  hoarse  with  loud  proclaiming,  rest  not  from 
their  labour-  and  still,  in  torrents,  rushes  on  the  great  array  of 
Publications,  unpausing,  to  their  final  home;  and  still  Oblivion, 
like  the  Grave,  cries :  Give  !  Give  !  How  is  it  that  of  all  these 
countless  multitudes,  no  one  can  attain  to  the  smallest  mark 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  685 

of  excellence,  or  produce  aught  that  shall  endure  longer  than 
"snow-flake  on  the  river,"  or  the  foam  of  penny-beer?  We 
answer :  Because  they  are  foam ;  because  there  is  no  Reality  in 
them.  These  Three  Thousand  men,  women,  and  Children,  that 
make  up  the  army  of  British  Authors,  do  not,  if  we  will  well  con- 
sider it,  see  anything  whatever ;  consequently  have  nothing  that 
they  can  record  and  utter,  only  more  or  fewer  things  that  they  can 
plausibly  pretend  to  record.  The  Universe,  of  Man  and  Nature, 
is  still  quite  shut-up  from  them ;  the  "  open  secret  "  still  utterly  a 
secret ;  because  no  sympathy  with  Man  or  Nature,  no  love  and 
free  simplicity  of  heart  has  yet  unfolded  the  same.  Nothing  but 
a  pitiful  Image  of  their  own  pitiful  Self,  with  its  vanities,  and 
grudgings,  and  ravenous  hunger  of  all  kinds,  hangs  forever  painted 
in  the  retina  of  these  unfortunate  persons  :  so  that  the  starry  ALL, 
with  whatsoever  it  embraces,  does  but  appear  as  some  expanded 
magic-lantern  shadow  of  that  same  Image,  —  and  naturally  looks 
pitiful  enough. 

It  is  vain  for  these  persons  to  allege  that  they  are  naturally 
without  gift,  naturally  stupid  and  sightless,  and  so  can  attain  to  no 
knowledge  of  anything ;  therefore,  in  writing  of  anything,  must 
needs  write  falsehoods  of  it,  there  being  in  it  no  truth  for  them. 
Not  so,  good  Friends.  The  stupidest  of  you  has  a  certain  fac- 
ulty ;  were  it  but  that  of  articulate  speech  (say  in  the  Scottish, 
the  Irish,  the  Cockney  dialect,  or  even  in  "Governess- English  "), 
and  of  physically  discerning  what  lies  under  your  nose.  The 
stupidest  of  you  would  perhaps  grudge  to  be  compared  in  fac- 
ulty with  James  Boswell ;  yet  see  what  he  has  produced  !  You 
do  not  use  your  faculty  honestly ;  your  heart  is  shut  up ;  full  of 
greediness,  malice,  discontent ;  so  your  intellectual  sense  cannot 
be  open.  It  is  vain  also  to  urge  that  James  Boswell  had  oppor- 
tunities ;  saw  great  men  and  great  things,  such  as  you  can  never 
hope  to  look  on.  What  make  ye  of  Parson  White  in  Selborne? 
He  had  not  only  no  great  men  to  look  on,  but  not  even  men ; 
merely  sparrows  and  cock-chafers  :  yet  has  he  left  us  a  Biography 
of  these ;  which,  under  its  title  Natural  History  of  Selborne,  still 


686  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

remains  valuable  to  us ;  which  has  copied  a  little  sentence  or  two 
faithfully  from  the  inspired  volume  of  Nature,  and  so  is  itself  not 
without  inspiration.  Go  ye  and  do  likewise.  Sweep  away  utterly 
all  frothiness  and  falsehood  from  your  heart ;  struggle  unweariedly 
to  acquire,  what  is  possible  for  every  God-created  Man,  a  free, 
open,  humble  soul :  speak  not  at  all,  in  any  wise,  till  you  have 
somewhat  to  speak  ;  care  not  for  the  reward  of  your  speaking,  but 
simply  and  with  undivided  mind  for  the  truth  of  your  speaking : 
then  be  placed  in  what  section  of  Space  and  of  Time  soever,  do 
but  open  your  eyes,  and  they  shall  actually  see,  and  bring  you 
real  knowledge,  wondrous,  worthy  of  belief ;  and  instead  of  one 
Boswell  and  one  White,  the  world  will  rejoice  in  a  thousand, — 
stationed  on  their  thousand  several  watch-towers,  to  instruct  us  by 
indubitable  documents,  of  whatsoever  in  our  so  stupendous  World 
comes  to  light  and  is  !  O,  had  the  Editor  of  this  Magazine  but  a 
magic  rod  to  turn  all  that  not  inconsiderable  Intellect,  which  now 
deluges  us  with  artificial  soap-lather,  and  mere  Lying,  into  the 
faithful  study  of  Reality,  —  what  knowledge  of  great,  everlasting 
Nature,  of  Man's  ways  and  doings  therein,  would  not  every  year 
bring  us  in  !  Can  we  but  change  one  single  soap-latherer  and 
mountebank  Juggler  into  a  true  Thinker  and  Doer,  who  even  tries 
honestly  to  think  and  do  —  great  will  be  our  reward. 

But  to  return ;  or  rather  from  this  point  to  begin  our  journey  ! 
If  now,  what  with  Herr  Sauerteig's  Springwurzeln,  what  with  so 
much  lucubration  of  our  own,  it  have  become  apparent  how  deep, 
immeasurable  is  the  " worth  that  lies  in  Reality"  and  farther, 
how  exclusive  the  interest  which  man  takes  in  the  Histories  of 
Man,  —  may  it  not  seem  lamentable,  that  so  few  genuinely  good 
Biographies  have  yet  been  accumulated  in  Literature ;  that  in  the 
whole  world,  one  cannot  find,  going  strictly  to  work,  above  some 
dozen  or  baker's  dozen,  and  those  chiefly  of  very  ancient  date  ? 
Lamentable  ;  yet  after  what  we  have  just  seen,  accountable.  An- 
other question  might  be  asked  :  How  comes  it  that  in  England 
we  have  simply  one  good  Biography,  this  Bosiuell's  Johnson  ;  and 
of  good,  indifferent,  or  even  bad  attempts  at  Biography,  fewer 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  687 

than  any  civilized  people  ?  Consider  the  French  and  Germans, 
with  their  Moreris,  Bayles,  Jordenses,  Jochers,  their  innumerable 
Me  moires,  and  Schihferungen,  and  Biographies  Universelles ;  not 
to  speak  of  Rousseaus,  Goethes,  Schubarts,  Jung-Stillings :  and 
then  contrast  with  these  our  poor  Birches  and  Kippises  and 
Pecks,  —  the  whole  breed  of  whom,  moreover,  is  now  extinct ! 

With  this  question,  as  the  answer  might  lead  us  far,  and  come 
out  unflattering  to  patriotic  sentiment,  we  shall  not  intermeddle  ; 
but  turn  rather,  with  great  pleasure,  to  the  fact,  that  one  excellent 
Biography  is  actually  English  ;  and  even  now  lies,  in  Five  new  Vol- 
umes, at  our  hand,  soliciting  a  new  consideration  from  us ;  such 
as,  age  after  age  (the  Perennial  showing  ever  new  phases  as  our 
position  alters),  it  may  long  be  profitable  to  bestow  on  it;  —  to 
which  task  we  here,  in  this  age,  gladly  address  ourselves. 

First,  however,  let  the  foolish  April-fool  Day  pass  by;  and 
our  Reader,  during  these  twenty-nine  days  of  uncertain  weather 
that  will  follow,  keep  pondering,  according  to  convenience,  the 
purport  of  BIOGRAPHY  in  general :  then,  with  the  blessed  dew  of 
May-day,  and  in  unlimited  convenience  of  space,  shall  all  that 
we  have  written  on  Johnson,  and  BosweWs  Johnson,  and  Croker's 
BosweWs  Johnson,  be  faithfully  laid  before  him. 


XXXIII. 

2.   HERO-WORSHIP. 

[Written  in  1840.] 

THE  HERO  AS  POET  .  .  .  SHAKSPEARE. 

As  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our  world  to  embody 
musically  the  Religion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Religion  of  our 
Modern  Europe,  its  Inner  Life ;  so  SHAKSPEARE,  we  may  say,  em- 
bodies for  us  the  Outer  Life  of  our  Europe  as  developed  then,  its 
chivalries,  courtesies,  humours,  ambitions,  what  practical  way  of 
thinking,  acting,  looking,  at  the  world,  man  then  had.  As  in 
Homer  we  may  still  construe  Old  Greece ;  so  in  Shakspeare  and 
Dante,  after  thousands  of  years,  what  our  modern  Europe  was,  in 
Faith  and  in  Practice,  will  still  be  legible.  Dante  has  given  us  the 
Faith  or  soul ;  Shakspeare,  in  a  not  less  noble  way,  has  given  us 
the  Practice  or  body.  This  latter  also  we  were  to  have  :  a  man 
was  sent  for  it,  the  man  Shakspeare.  Just  when  that  chivalry  way 
of  life  had  reached  its  last  finish,  and  was  on  the  point  of  breaking 
down  into  slow  or  swift  dissolution,  as  we  now  see  it  everywhere, 
this  other  sovereign  Poet,  with  his  seeing  eye,  with  his  perennial 
singing  voice,  was  sent  to  take  note  of  it,  to  give  long-enduring 
record  of  it.  Two  fit  men  :  Dante,  deep,  fierce  as  the  central  fire 
of  the  world ;  Shakspeare,  wide,  placid,  far-seeing,  as  the  Sun,  the 
upper  light  of  the  world.  Italy  produced  the  one  world-voice ; 
we  English  had  the  honour  of  producing  the  other. 

Curious  enough  how,  as  it  were  by  mere  accident,  this  man 
came  to  us.  I  think  always,  so  great,  quiet,  complete  and  self- 
sufficing  is  this  Shakspeare,  had  the  Warwickshire  Squire  not  pros- 
ecuted him  for  deer-stealing,  we  had  perhaps  never  heard  of  him  as 
688 


HER  O  -  WORSHIP.  689 

a  Poet !  The  woods  and  skies,  the  rustic  Life  of  Man  in  Stratford 
there,  had  been  enough  for  this  man  !  But  indeed  that  strange 
outbudding  of  our  whole  English  Existence,  which  we  call  the 
Elizabethan  Era,  did  not  it  too  come  as  of  its  own  accord  ?  The 
'  Tree  Igdrasil ' 7  buds  and  withers  by  its  own  laws,  —  too  deep  for 
our  scanning.  Yet  it  does  bud  and  wither,  and  every  bough  and 
leaf  of  it  is  there,  by  fixed  eternal  laws ;  not  a  Sir  Thomas  Lucy 
but  comes  at  the  hour  fit  for  him.  Curious,  I  say,  and  not  suffi- 
ciently considered  :  how  everything  does  cooperate  with  all ;  not  a 
leaf  rotting  on  the  highway  but  is  indissoluble  portion  of  solar  and 
stellar  systems ;  no  thought,  word  or  act  of  man  but  has  sprung 
withal  out  of  all  men,  and  works  sooner  or  later,  recognisably  or 
irrecognisably,  on  all  men  !  It  is  all  a  Tree  :  circulation  of  sap 
and  influences,  mutual  communication  of  every  minutest  leaf  with 
the  lowest  talon  of  a  root,  with  every  other  greatest  and  minutest 
portion  of  the  whole.  The  Tree  Igdrasil,  that  has  its  roots  down 
in  the  Kingdoms  of  Hela  and  Death,  and  whose  boughs  overspread 
the  highest  Heaven  !  — 

In  some  sense  it  may  be  said  that  this  glorious  Elizabethan  Era 
with  its  Shakspeare,  as  the  outcome  and  flowerage  of  all  which 
had  preceded  it,  is  itself  attributable  to  the  Catholicism  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  Christian  Faith,  which  was  the  theme  of 
Dante's  Song,  had  produced  this  Practical  Life  which  Shakspeare 
was  to  sing.  For  Religion  then,  as  it  now  and  always  is,  was  the 
soul  of  Practice  ;  the  primary  vital  fact  in  men's  life.  And  remark 
here,  as  rather  curious,  that  Middle-Age  Catholicism  was  abolished, 
so  far  as  Acts  of  Parliament  could  abolish  it,  before  Shakspeare, 
the  noblest  product  of  it,  made  his  appearance.  He 'did  make 
his  appearance  nevertheless.  Nature  at  her  own  time,  with  Cathol- 
icism or  what  else  might  be  necessary,  sent  him  forth ;  taking 
small  thought  of  Acts  of  Parliament.  King-Henrys,  Queen-Eliza- 

7  In  the  Norse  mythology  of  the  Edda,  Yggdrasil  is  "  the  ash  of  destiny, 
biggest  and  best  of  all  trees,  under  whose  widespread  boughs  the  gods  hold 
their  doom  each  day."  —  METCALFE,  The  Englishman  and  the  Scandina- 
vian, p.  242. 


690  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

beths  go  their  way ;  and  Nature  too  goes  hers.  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, on  the  whole,  are  small,  notwithstanding  the  noise  they 
make.  What  Act  of  Parliament,  debate  at  St.  Stephen's,  on  the 
hustings  or  elsewhere,  was  it  that  brought  this  Shakspeare  into 
being?  No  dining  at  Freemasons'  Tavern,  opening  subscription- 
lists,  selling  of  shares,  and  infinite  other  jangling  and  true  or  false 
endeavouring  !  This  Elizabethan  Era,  and  all  its  nobleness  and 
blessedness,  came  without  proclamation,  preparation  of  ours. 
Priceless  Shakspeare  was  the  free  gift  of  Nature  ;  given  altogether 
silently  ;  —  received  altogether  silently,  as  if  it  had  been  a  thing  of 
little  account.  And  yet,  very  literally,  it  is  a  priceless  thing.  One 
should  look  at  that  side  of  matters  too. 

Of  this  Shakspeare  of  ours,  perhaps  the  opinion  one  sometimes 
hears  a  little  idolatrously  expressed  is,  in  fact,  the  right  one  ;  I 
think  the  best  judgment  not  of  this  country  only,  but  of  Europe 
at  large,  is  slowly  pointing  to  the  conclusion,  That  Shakspeare  is 
the  chief  of  all  Poets  hitherto ;  the  greatest  intellect  who,  in  our 
recorded  world,  has  left  record  of  himself  in  the  way  of  Literature. 
On  the  whole,  I  know  not  such  a  power  of  vision,  such  a  faculty 
of  thought,  if  we  take  all  the  characters  of  it,  in  any  other  man. 
Such  a  calmness  of  depth  ;  placid  joyous  strength  ;  all  things  imaged 
in  that  great  soul  of  his  so  true  and  clear,  as  in  a  tranquil  unfath- 
omable sea  !  It  has  been  said  that  in  the  constructing  of  Shak- 
speare's  Dramas  there  is,  apart  from  all  other  '  faculties  '  as  they 
are  called,  an  understanding  manifested,  equal  to  that  in  Bacon's 
Novum  Organum.  That  is  true  ;  and  it  is  not  a  truth  that  strikes 
every  one.  It  would  become  more  apparent  if  we  tried,  any  of  us 
for  himself,  how,  out  of  Shakspeare's  dramatic  materials,  we  could 
fashion  such  a  result !  The  built  house  seems  all  so  fit,  —  every- 
way as  it  should  be,  as  if  it  came  there  by  its  own  law  and  the 
nature  of  things, — we  forget  the  rude  disorderly  quarry  it  was 
shaped  from.  The  very  perfection  of  the  house,  as  if  Nature  her- 
self had  made  it,  hides  the  builder's  merit.  Perfect,  more  perfect 
than  any  other  man,  we  may  call  Shakspeare  in  this  :  he  discerns, 
knows  as  by  instinct,  what  condition  he  works  under,  what  his 


HER  O  -  WORSJIH '.  691 

materials  are,  what  his  own  force  and  its  relation  to  them  is.  It  is 
not  a  transitory  glance  of  insight  that  will  suffice ;  it  is  deliberate 
illumination  of  the  whole  matter ;  it  is  a  calmly  seeing  eye ;  a  great 
intellect,  in  short.  How  a  man,  of  some  wide  thing  that  he  has 
witnessed,  will  construct  a  narrative,  what  kind  of  picture  and 
delineation  he  will  give  of  it,  —  is  the  best  measure  you  could  get 
of  what  intellect  is  in  the  man.  Which  circumstance  is  vital  and 
shall  stand  prominent;  which  unessential,  fit  to  be  suppressed; 
where  is  the  true  beginning,  the  true  sequence  and  ending?  To 
find  out  this  you  task  the  whole  force  of  insight  that  is  in  the  man. 
He  must  understand  the  thing;  according  to  the  depth  of  his 
understanding,  will  the  fitness  of  his  answer  be.  You  will  try  him 
so.  Does  like  join  itself  to  like  ;  does  the  spirit  of  method  stir  in 
that  confusion,  so  that  its  embroilment  becomes  order?  Can  the 
man  say,  Fiat  lux,  Let  there  be  light ;  and  out  of  chaos  make  a 
world  ?  Precisely  as  there  is  light  in  himself,  will  he  accomplish 
this. 

Or  indeed  we  may  say  again,  it  is  in  what  I  called  Portrait- 
painting,  delineating  of  men  and  things,  especially  of  men,  that 
Shakspeare  is  great.  All  the  greatness  of  the  man  comes  out 
decisively  here.  It  is  unexampled,  I  think,  that  calm  creative 
perspicacity  of  Shakspeare.  The  thing  he  looks  at  reveals  not 
this  or  that  face  of  it,  but  its  inmost  heart,  and  generic  secret :  it 
dissolves  itself  as  in  light  before  him,  so  that  he  discerns  the  per- 
fect structure  of  it.  Creative,  we  said :  poetic  creation,  what  is 
this  too  but  seeing  the  thing  sufficiently?  The  word  that  will 
describe  the  thing,  follows  of  itself  from  such  clear  intense  sight 
of  the  thing.  And  is  not  Shakspeare 's  morality,  his  valour,  can- 
dour, tolerance,  truthfulness ;  his  whole  victorious  strength  and 
greatness,  which  can  triumph  over  such  obstructions,  visible  there 
too  ?  Great  as  the  world  !  No  twisted,  poor  convex-concave 
mirror,  reflecting  all  objects  with  its  own  convexities  and  con- 
cavities ;  a  perfectly  level  mirror ;  —  that  is  to  say  withal,  if  we 
will  understand  it,  a  man  justly  related  to  all  things  and  men,  a 
good  man.  It  is  truly  a  lordly  spectacle  how  this  great  soul  takes 


692  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

in  all  kinds  of  men  and  objects,  a  Falstaff,  an  Othello,  a  Juliet, 
a  Coriolanus ;  sets  them  all  forth  to  us  in  their  round  complete- 
ness ;  loving,  just,  the  equal  brother  of  all.  Novum  Organum, 
and  all  the  intellect  you  will  find  in  B*acon,  is  of  a  quite  secondary 
order;  earthly,  material,  poor  in  comparison  with  this.  Among 
modern  men,  one  finds,  in  strictness,  almost  nothing  of  the  same 
rank.  Goethe  alone,  since  the  days  of  Shakspeare,  reminds  me 
of  it.  Of  him  too  you  say  that  he  saw  the  object :  you  may  say 
what  he  himself  says  of  Shakspeare  :  '  His  characters  are  like 
watches  with  dial-plates  of  transparent  crystal :  they  show  you  the 
hour  like  others,  and  the  inward  mechanism  also  is  all  visible.' 

The  seeing  eye  !  It  is  this  that  discloses  the  inner  harmony 
of  things ;  what  Nature  meant,  what  musical  idea  Nature  has 
wrapped-up  in  these  often  rough  embodiments.  Something  she 
did  mean.  To  the  seeing  eye  that  something  were  discernible. 
Are  they  base,  miserable  things?  You  can  laugh  over  them,  you 
can  weep  over  them;  you  can  in  some  way  or  other  genially 
relate  yourself  to  them  ?  —  you  can,  at  lowest,  hold  your  peace 
about  them,  turn  away  your  own  and  others'  face  from  them,  till 
the  hour  come  for  practically  exterminating  and  extinguishing 
them  !  At  bottom,  it  is  the  Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's, 
that  he  have  intellect  enough.  He  will  be  a  Poet  if  he  have  :  a 
Poet  in  word ;  or  failing  that,  perhaps  still  better,  a  Poet  in  act. 
Whether  he  write  at  all ;  and  if  so,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse, 
will  depend  on  accidents :  who  knows  on  what  extremely  trivial 
accidents,  —  perhaps  on  his  having  had  a  singing-master,  on  his 
being  taught  to  sing  in  his  boyhood  !  But  the  faculty  which 
enables  him  to  discern  the  inner  heart  of  things,  and  the  harmony 
that  dwells  there  (for  whatsoever  exists  has  a  harmony  in  the  heart 
of  it,  or  it  would  not  hold  together  and  exist) ,  is  not  the  result  of 
habits  or  accidents,  but  the  gift  of  Nature  herself;  the  primary 
outfit  for  a  Heroic  Man  in  what  sort  soever.  To  the  Poet,  as  to 
every  other,  we  say  first  of  all,  See.  If  you  cannot  do  that,  it  is  of 
no  use  to  keep  stringing  rhymes  together,  jingling  sensibilities 
against  each  other,  and  name  yourself  a  Poet ;  there  is  no  hope 


HER  O  -  WORSHIP.  693 

for  you.  If  you  can,  there  is,  in  prose  or  verse,  in  action  or  spec- 
ulation, all  manner  of  hope.  The  crabbed  old  Schoolmaster  used 
to  ask,  when  they  brought  him  a  new  pupil,  "  But  are  ye  sure  he's 
not  a  dunce  ?  "  Why,  really  one  might  ask  the  same  thing,  in 
regard  to  every  man  proposed  for  whatsoever  function  ;  and  con- 
sider it  as  the  one  enquiry  needful :  Are  ye  sure  he's  not  a  dunce  ? 
There  is,  in  this  world,  no  other  entirely  fatal  person. 

For,  in  fact,  I  say  the  degree  of  vision  that  dwells  in  a  man  is 
a  correct  measure  of  the  man.  If  called  to  define  Shakspeare's 
faculty,  I  should  say  superiority  of  Intellect,  and  think  I  had  in- 
cluded all  under  that.  What  indeed  are  faculties?  We  talk  of 
faculties  as  if  they  were  distinct,  things  separable  ;  as  if  a  man 
had  intellect,  imagination,  fancy,  &c.,  as  he  has  hands,  feet  and 
arms.  That  is  a  capital  error.  Then  again,  we  hear  of  a  man's 
'  intellectual  nature,'  and  of  his  '  moral  nature,'  as  if  these  again 
were  divisible,  and  existed  apart.  Necessities  of  language  do 
perhaps  prescribe  such  forms  of  utterance ;  we  must  speak,  I  am 
aware,  in  that  way,  if  we  are  to  speak  at  all.  But  words  ought 
not  to  harden  into  things  for  us.  It  seems  to  me,  our  apprehension 
of  this  matter  is,  for  most  part,  radically  falsified  thereby.  We 
ought  to  know  withal,  and  to  keep  for  ever  in  mind,  that  these 
divisions  are  at  bottom  but  names ;  that  man's  spiritual  nature, 
the  vital  Force  which  dwells  in  hjm,  is  essentially  one  and  indivis- 
ible ;  that  what  we  call  imagination,  fancy,  understanding,  and  so 
forth,  are  but  different  figures  of  the  same  Power  of  Insight,  all 
indissolubly  connected  with  each  other,  physiognomically  related  ; 
that  if  we  knew  one  of  them,  we  might  know  all  of  them.  Moral- 
ity itself,  what  we  call  the  moral  quality  of  a  man,  what  is  this 
but  another  side  of  the  one  vital  Force  whereby  he  is  and  works  ? 
All  that  a  man  does  is  physiognomical  of  him.  You  may  see  how 
a  man  would  fight,  by  the  way  in  which  he  sings ;  his  courage,  or 
want  of  courage,  is  visible  in  the  word  he  utters,  in  the  opinion  he 
has  formed,  no  less  than  in  the  stroke  he  strikes.  He  is  one ; 
and  preaches  the  same  Self  abroad  in  all  these  ways. 

Without  hands  a  man  might  have  feet,  and  could  still  walk : 


694  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

but,  consider  it,  —  without  morality,  intellect  were  impossible*  for 
him ;  a  thoroughly  immoral  man  could  not  know  anything  at  all ! 
To  know  a  thing,  what  we  can  call  knowing,  a  man  must  first  love 
the  thing,  sympathize  with  it :  that  is,  be  virtuously  related  to  it. 
If  he  have  not  the  justice  to  put  down  his  own  selfishness  at  every 
turn,  the  courage  to  stand  by  the  dangerous-true  at  every  turn, 
how  shall  he  know  ?  His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded  in 
his  knowledge.  Nature,  with  her  truth,  remains  to  the  bad,  to  the 
selfish  and  the  pusillanimous  for  ever  a  sealed  book :  what  such 
can  know  of  Nature  is  mean,  superficial,  small ;  for  the  uses  of 
the  day  merely.  —  But  does  not  the  very  Fox  know  something  of 
Nature  ?  Exactly  so :  it  knows  where  the  geese  lodge !  The 
human  Reynard,  very  frequent  everywhere  in  the  world ;  what 
more  does  he  know  but  this  and  the  like  of  this  ?  Nay,  it  should 
be  considered  too,  that  if  the  Fox  had  not  a  certain  vulpine  mo- 
rality, he  could  not  even  know  where  the  geese  were,  or  get  at 
the  geese  !  If  he  spent  his  time  in  splenetic  atrabiliar  reflections 
on  his  own  misery,  his  ill  usage  by  Nature,  Fortune  and  other 
Foxes,  and  so  forth ;  and  had  not  courage,  promptitude,  practi- 
cality, and  other  suitable  vulpine  gifts  and  graces,  he  would  catch 
no  geese.  We  may  say  of  the  Fox  too  that  his  morality  and 
insight  are  of  the  same  dimensions ;  different  faces  of  the  same 
internal  unity  of  vulpine  life  ! — These  things  are  worth  stating; 
for  the  contrary  of  them  acts  with  manifold  very  baleful  perver- 
sion, in  this  time  :  what  limitations,  modifications  they  require, 
your  own  candour  will  supply. 

If  I  say,  therefore,  that  Shakspeare  is  the  greatest  of  Intellects, 
I  have  said  all  concerning  him.  But  there  is  more  in  Shakspeare's 
intellect  than  we  have  yet  seen.  It  is  what  I  call  an  unconscious 
intellect ;  there  is  more  virtue  in  it  than  he  himself  is  aware  of. 
Novalis  beautifully  remarks  of  him,  that  those  dramas  of  his  are 
Products  of  Nature  too,  deep  as  Nature  herself.  I  find  a  great 
truth  in  this  saying.  Shakspeare's  Art  is  not  Artifice  ;  the  noblest 
worth  of  it  is  not  there  by  plan  or  precontrivance.  It  grows-up 
from  the  deeps  of  Nature,  through  this  noble  sincere  soul,  who  is 


HER  0  -  WORSHIP.  695 

a  voice  of  Nature.  The  latest  generations  of  men  will  find  new 
meanings  in  Shakspeare,  new  elucidations  of  their  own  human 
being ;  '  new  harmonies  with  the  infinite  structure  of  the  Universe  : 
concurrences  with  later  ideas,  affinities  with  the  higher  powers  and 
senses  of  man.'  This  well  deserves  meditating.  It  is  Nature's 
highest  reward  to  a  true  simple  great  soul,  that  he  get  thus  to  be 
a  part  of  herself.  Such  a  man's  works,  whatsoever  he  with  utmost 
conscious  exertion  and  forethought  shall  accomplish,  grow  up 
withal  ^consciously,  from  the  unknown  deeps  in  him  ;  —  as  the 
oak-tree  grows  from  the  Earth's  bosom,  as  the  mountains  and 
waters  shape  themselves ;  with  a  symmetry  grounded  on  Nature's 
own  laws,  conformable  to  all  Truth  whatsoever.  How  much  in 
Shakspeare  lies  hid ;  his  sorrows,  his  silent  struggles  known  to 
himself ;  much  that  was  not  known  at  all,  not  speakable  at  all : 
like  roots,  like  sap  and  forces  working  underground  !  Speech  is 
great ;  but  Silence  is  greater. 

Withal  the  joyful  tranquillity  of  this  man  is  notable.  I  will  not 
blame  Dante  for  his  misery :  it  is  as  battle  without  victory ;  but 
true  battle,  —  the  first,  indispensable  thing.  Yet  I  call  Shakspeare 
greater  than  Dante,  in  that  he  fought  truly,  and  did  conquer. 
Doubt  it  not,  he  had  his  own  sorrows  :  those  Sonnets  of  his  will 
even  testify  expressly  in  what  deep  waters  he  had  waded,  and 
swum  struggling  for  his  life  ;  —  as  what  man  like  him  ever  failed 
to  have  to  do  ?  It  seems  to  me  a  heedless  notion,  our  common 
one,  that  he  sat  like  a  bird  on  the  bough  ;  and  sang'forth,  free  and 
offhand,  never  knowing  the  troubles  of  other  men.  Not  so  ;  with 
no  man  is  it  so.  How  could  a  man  travel  forward  from  rustic 
deer-poaching  to  such  tragedy-writing,  and  not  fall  in  with  sorrows 
by  the  way?  Or,  still  better,  how  could  a  man  delineate  a  Ham- 
let, a  Coriolanus,  a  Macbeth,  so  many  suffering  heroic  hearts,  if 
his  own  heroic  heart  had  never  suffered  ?  —  And  now,  in  contrast 
with  all  this,  observe  his  mirthfulness,  his  genuine  overflowing  love 
of  laughter  !  You  would  say,  in  no  point  does  he  exaggerate  but 
only  in  laughter.  Fiery  objurgations,  words  that  pierce  and  burn, 
are  to  be  found  in  Shakspeare ;  yet  he  is  always  in  measure  here; 


696  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

never  what  Johnson  would  remark  as  a  specially  'good  hater.' 
But  his  laughter  seems  to  pour  from  him  in  floods ;  he  heaps  all 
manner  of  ridiculous  nicknames  on  the  butt  he  is  bantering,  tum- 
bles and  tosses  him  in  all  sorts  of  horse-play ;  you  would  say,  with 
his  whole  heart  laughs.  And  then,  if  not  always  the  finest,  it  is 
always  a  genial  laughter.  Not  at  mere  weakness,  at  misery  or 
poverty ;  never.  No  man  who  can  laugh,  what  we  call  laughing, 
will  laugh  at  these  things.  It  is  some  poor  character  only  desir- 
ing to  laugh,  and  have  the  credit  of  wit,  that  does  so.  Laughter 
means  sympathy ;  good  laughter  is  not  '  the  crackling  of  thorns 
under  the  pot.'  Even  at  stupidity  and  pretension  this  Shakspeare 
does  not  laugh  otherwise  than  genially.  Dogberry  and  Verges 
tickle  our  very  hearts  ;  and  we  dismiss  them  covered  with  explo- 
sions of  laughter  :  but  we  like  the  poor  fellows  only  the  better  for 
our  laughing ;  and  hope  they  will  get  on  well  there,  and  continue 
Presidents  of  the  City-watch.  Such  laughter,  like  sunshine  on 
the  deep  sea,  is  very  beautiful  to  me. 

We  have  no  room  to  speak  of  Shakspeare's  individual  works ; 
though  perhaps  there  is  much  still  waiting  to  be  said  on  that  head. 
Had  we,  for  instance,  all  his  plays  reviewed  as  Hamlet  in  Wilhelm 
Meister,  is  !  A  thing  which  might,  one  day,  be  done.  August 
Wilhelm  Schlegel  has  a  remark  on  his  Historical  Plays,  Henry 
Fifth  and  the  others,  which  is  worth  remembering.  He  calls 
them  a  kind  of  National  Epic.  Marlborough,  you  recollect,  said, 
he  knew  no  English  History  but  what  he  had  learned  from  Shak- 
speare. There  are  really,  if  we  look  to  it,  few  as  memorable 
Histories.  The  great  salient  points  are  admirably  seized ;  all 
rounds  itself  off,  into  a  kind  of  rhythmic  coherence;  it  is,  as 
Schlegel  says,  epic  ;  —  as  indeed  all  delineation  by  a  great  thinker 
will  be.  There  are  right  beautiful  things  in  those  Pieces,  which 
indeed  together  form  one  beautiful  thing.  That  battle  of  Agin- 
court  strikes  me  as  one  of  the  most  perfect  things,  in  its  sort,  we 
anywhere  have  of  Shakspeare's.  The  description  of  the  two  hosts  : 
the  worn-out,  jaded  English;  the  dread  hour,  big  with  destiny, 
when  the  battle  shall  begin  ;  and  then  that  deathless  valour  :  "  Ye 


HER  0  -  WORSHIP.  697 

good  yeomen,  whose  limbs  were  made  in  England  !  "  There  is 
a  noble  Patriotism  in  it,  —  far  other  than  the  'indifference'  you 
sometimes  hear  ascribed  to  Shakspeare.  A  true  English  heart 
breathes,  calm  and  strong,  through  the  whole  business ;  not  bois- 
terous, protrusive ;  all  the  better  for  that.  There  is  a  sound  in 
it  like  the  ring  of  steel.  This  man  too  had  a  right  stroke  in  him, 
had  it  come  to  that ! 

But  I  will  say,  of  Shakspeare 's  works  generally,  that  we  have 
no  full  impress  of  him  there ;  even  as  full  as  we  have  of  many 
men.  His  works  are  so  many  windows,  through  which  we  see  a 
glimpse  of  the  world  that  was  in  him.  All  his  works  seem,  com- 
paratively speaking,  cursory,  imperfect,  written  under  cramping 
circumstances,  giving  only  here  and  there  a  note  of  the  full  utter- 
ance of  the  man.  Passages  there  are  that  come  upon  you  like 
splendour  out  of  Heaven ;  bursts  of  radiance,  illuminating  the 
very  heart  of  the  thing :  you  say,  "That  is  true,  spoken  once  and 
forever ;  wheresoever  and  whensoever  there  is  an  open  human  soul, 
that  will  be  recognised  as  true  !  "  Such  bursts,  however,  make  us 
feel  that  the  surrounding  matter  is  not  radiant ;  that  it  is,  in  part, 
temporary,  conventional.  Alas,  Shakspeare  had  to  write  for  the 
Globe  Playhouse :  his  great  soul  had  to  crush  itself,  as  it  could, 
into  that  and  no  other  mould.  It  was  with  him,  then,  as  it  is  with 
us  all.  No  man  works  save  under  conditions.  The  sculptor  can- 
not set  his  own  free  Thought  before  us ;  but  his  Thought  as  he 
could  translate  it  into  the  stone  that  was  given,  with  the  tools  that 
were  given.  Disjecta  membra 8  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  Poet, 
or  of  any  man. 

Whoever  looks  intelligently  at  this  Shakspeare  may  recognise 
that  he  too  was  a  Prophet,  in  his  way ;  of  an  insight  analogous  to 
the  Prophetic,  though  he  took  it  up  in  another  strain.  Nature 
seemed  to  this  man  also  divine;  wwspeakable,  deep  as  Tophet, 
high  as  Heaven :  'We  are  such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made  of!' 
That  scroll  in  Westminster  Abbey,  which  few  read  with  under- 

8  scattered  limbs. 


698  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

standing,  is  of  the  depth  of  any  seer.  But  the  man  sang ;  did 
not  preach,  except  musically.  We  call  Dante  the  melodious 
Priest  of  Middle- Age  Catholicism.  May  we  not  call  Shakspeare 
the  still  more  melodious  Priest  of  a  true  Catholicism,  the  '  Uni- 
versal Church '  of  the  Future  and  of  all  times  ?  No  narrow 
superstition,  harsh  asceticism,  intolerance,  fanatical  fierceness  or 
perversion  :  a  Revelation,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  such  a  thousand- 
fold hidden  beauty  and  divineness  dwells  in  all  Nature ;  which  let 
all  men  worship  as  they  can  !  We  may  say  without  offence,  that 
there  rises  a  kind  of  universal  Psalm  out  of  this  Shakspeare  too ; 
not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among  the  still  more  sacred  Psalms. 
Not  in  disharmony  with  these,  if  we  understood  them,  but  in 
harmony  !  —  I  cannot  call  this  Shakspeare  a  '  Sceptic,'  as  some 
do ;  his  indifference  to  the  creeds  and  theological  quarrels  of  his 
time  misleading  them.  No  :  neither  unpatriotic,  though  he  says 
little  about  his  Patriotism ;  nor  sceptic,  though  he  says  little  about 
his  Faith.  Such  '  indifference  '  was  the  fruit  of  his  greatness 
withal :  his  whole  heart  was  in  his  own  grand  sphere  of  worship 
(we  may  call  it  such)  ;  these  other  controversies,  vitally  important 
to  other  men,  were  not  vital  to  him. 

But  call  it  worship,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  it  not  a  right  glorious 
thing,  and  set  of  things,  this  that  Shakspeare  has  brought  us? 
For  myself,  I  feel  that  there  is  actually  a  kind  of  sacredness  in 
the  fact  of  such  a  man  being  sent  into  this  Earth.  Is  he  not  an 
eye  to  us  all ;  a  blessed  heaven-sent  Bringer  of  Light  ?  —  And,  at 
bottom,  was  it  not  perhaps  far  better  that  this  Shakspeare,  every- 
way an  unconscious  man,  was  conscious  of  no  Heavenly  mes- 
sage? He  did  not  feel,  like  Mahomet,  because  he  saw  into 
those  internal  Splendours,  that  he  specially  was  the  '  Prophet  of 
God  : '  and  was  he  not  greater  than  Mahomet  in  that  ?  Greater ; 
and  also,  if  we  compute  strictly,  as  we  did  in  Dante's  case,  more 
successful.  It  was  intrinsically  an  error  that  notion  of  Maho- 
met's, of  his  supreme  Prophethood  ;  and  has  come  down  to  us 
inextricably  involved  in  error  to  this  day ;  dragging  along  with  it 
such  a  coil  of  fables,  impurities,  intolerances,  as  makes  it  a  ques- 


HER  O  -  WORSHIP.  699 

tionable  step  for  me  here  and  now  to  say,  as  I  have  done,  that 
Mahomet  was  a  true  Speaker  at  all,  and  not  rather  an  ambitious 
charlatan,  perversity  and  simulacrum ;  no  Speaker,  but  a  Bab- 
bler !  Even  in  Arabia,  as  I  compute,  Mahomet  will  have  ex- 
hausted himself  and  become  obsolete,  while  this  Shakspeare,  this 
Dante  may  still  be  young; — while  this  Shakspeare  may  still  pre- 
tend to  be  a  Priest  of  Mankind,  of  Arabia  as  of  other  places,  for 
unlimited  periods  to  come  ! 

Compared  with  any  speaker  or  singer  one  knows,  even  with 
^Eschylus  or  Homer,  why  should  he  not,  for  veracity  and  univer- 
sality, last  like  them?  He  is  sincere  as  they;  reaches  deep 
down  like  them,  to  the  universal  and  perennial.  But  as  for 
Mahomet,  I  think  it  had  been  better  for  him  not  to  be  so  con- 
scious !  Alas,  poor  Mahomet ;  all  that  he  was  conscious  of  was 
a  mere  error;  a  futility  and  triviality,  —  as  indeed  such  ever  is. 
The  truly  great  in  him  too  was  the  unconscious  :  that  he  was  a 
wild  Arab  lion  of  the  desert,  and  did  speak-out  with  that  great 
thunder-voice  of  his,  not  by  words  which  he  thought  to  be  great, 
but  by  actions,  by  feelings,  by  a  history  which  were  great !  His 
Koran  has  become  a  stupid  piece  of  prolix  absurdity ;  we  do  not 
believe,  like  him,  that  God  wrote  that !  The  great  Man  here  too, 
as  always,  is  a  Force  of  Nature  :  whatsoever  is  truly  great  in  him 
springs-up  from  the  /^articulate  deeps. 

Well :  this  is  our  poor  Warwickshire  Peasant,  who  rose  to  be 
Manager  of  a  Playhouse,  so  that  he  could  live  without  begging ; 
whom  the  Earl  of  Southampton  cast  some  kind  glances  on ; 
whom  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  many  thanks  to  him,  was  for  sending  to 
the  Treadmill  !  We  did  not  account  him  a  god,  like  Odin, 
while  he  dwelt  with  us ;  —  on  which  point  there  were  much  to  be 
said.  But  I  will  say  rather,  or  repeat :  In  spite  of  the  sad  state 
Hero-worship  now  lies  in,  consider  what  this  Shakspeare  has 
actually  become  among  us.  Which  Englishman  we  ever  made, 
in  this  land  of  ours,  which  million  of  Englishmen,  would  we  not 
give-up  rather  than  the  Stratford  Peasant?  There  is  no  regi- 


700  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

ment  of  highest  Dignitaries  that  we  would  sell  him  for.  He  is 
the  grandest  thing  we  have  yet  done.  For  our  honour  among 
foreign  nations,  as  an  ornament  to  our  English  Household,  what 
item  is  there  that  we  would  not  surrender  rather  than  him?  Con- 
sider now,  if  they  asked  us,  Will  you  give-up  your  Indian  Em- 
pire or  your  Shakspeare,  you  English ;  never  have  had  any 
Indian  Empire,  or  never  have  had  any  Shakspeare  !  Really  it 
were  a  grave  question.  Official  persons  would  answer  doubtless 
in  official  language ;  but  we,  for  our  part  too,  should  not  we  be 
forced  to  answer :  Indian  Empire,  or  no  Indian  Empire ;  we 
cannot  do  without  Shakspeare  !  Indian  Empire  will  go,  at  any 
rate,  some  day ;  but  this  Shakspeare  does  not  go,  he  lasts  forever 
with  us  ;  we  cannot  give-up  our  Shakspeare  ! 

Nay,  apart  from  spiritualities ;  and  considering  him  merely  as 
a  real,  marketable,  tangibly-useful  possession.  England,  before 
long,  this  Island  of  ours,'  will  hold  but  a  small  fraction  of  the 
English ;  in  America,  in  New  Holland,  east  and  west  to  the  very 
Antipodes,  there  will  be  a  Saxondom  covering  great  spaces  of 
the  Globe.  And  now,  what  is  it  that  can  keep  all  these  together 
into  virtually  one  Nation,  so  that  they  do  not  fall-out  and  fight, 
but  live  at  peace,  in  brotherlike  intercourse,  helping  one  another? 
This  is  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  practical  problem,  the 
thing  all  manner  of  sovereignties  and  governments  are  here 
to  accomplish  :  what  is  it  that  will  accomplish  this?  Acts  of 
Parliament,  administrative  prime-ministers  cannot.  America  is 
parted  from  us,  so  far  as  Parliament  could  part  it.  Call  it  not 
fantastic,  for  there  is  much  reality  in  it :  Here,  I  say,  is  an 
English  King,  whom  no  time  or  chance,  Parliament  or  combina- 
tion of  Parliaments,  can  dethrone  !  This  King  Shakspeare,  does 
not  he  shine,  in  crowned  sovereignty,  over  us  all,  as  the  noblest, 
gentlest,  yet  strongest  of  rallying-signs ;  /^destructible ;  really 
more  valuable  in  that  point  of  view  than  any  other  means  or 
appliance  whatsoever?  We  can  fancy  him  as  radiant  aloft  over 
all  the  Nations  of  Englishmen,  a  thousand  years  hence.  From 
Paramatta,  from  New  York,  wheresoever,  under  what  sort  of 


HER  O  -  WORSHIP.  701 

Parish-Constable  soever,  English  men  and  women  are,  they  will 
say  to  one  another :  "  Yes,  this  Shakspeare  is  ours ;  we  produced 
him,  we  speak  and  think  by  him ;  we  are  of  one  blood  and  kind 
with  him."  The  most  common-sense  politician,  too,  if  he  pleases, 
may  think  of  that. 

Yes,  truly,  it  is  a  great  thing  for  a  Nation  that  it  get  an  articu- 
late voice ;  that  it  produce  a  man  who  will  speak- forth  melo- 
diously what  the  heart  of  it  means  !  Italy,  for  example,  poor 
Italy  lies  dismembered,  scattered  asunder,  not  appearing  in  any 
protocol  or  treaty  as  a  unity  at  all ;  yet  the  noble  Italy  is  actually 
one : 9  Italy  produced  its  Dante  ;  Italy  can  speak  !  The  Czar  of 
all  the  Russias,  he  is  strong,  with  so  many  bayonets,  Cossacks 
and  cannons ;  and  does  a  great  feat  in  keeping  such  a  tract  of 
Earth  politically  together ;  but  he  cannot  yet  speak.  Something 
great  in  him,  but  it  is  a  dumb  greatness.  He  has  had  no  voice 
of  genius,  to  be  heard  of  all  men  and  times.  He  must  learn  to 
speak.  He  is  a  great  dumb  monster  hitherto.  His  cannons  and 
Cossacks  will  all  have  rusted  into  nonentity,  while  that  Dante's 
voice  is  still  audible.  The  nation  that  has  a  Dante  is  bound 
together  as  no  dumb  Russia  can  be.  —  We  must  here  end  what 
we  had  to  say  of  the  Hero-Poet. 

9  Italy  has  been  politically  one  since  1870. 


10  HIGHER   ENGLISH. 

Minto's  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature. 

Designed  mainly  to  show  characteristics  of  style.  By  WILLIAM  MINTO, 
M.A.,  Professor  of  Logic  and  Luglisu  Literature  in  the  University  of 
Aberdeen,  Scotland.  12ruo.  Clotn.  56(3  pages.  Mailing  price,  $1.65; 
for  introduction,  $1.50 ;  allowance,  40  cents. 

rpHE  main  design  is  to  assist  in  directing  students  in  English 
composition  to  the  merits  and  defects  of  the  principal  writers 
of  prose,  enabling  them,  in  some  degree  at  least,  to  acquire  the  one 
and  avoid  the  other.  The  Introduction  analyzes  style :  elements 
of  style,  qualities  of  style,  kinds  of  composition.  Part  First  gives 
exhaustive  analyses  of  De  Quincey,  Macaulay,  and  Carlyle.  These 
serve  as  a  key  to  all  the  other  authors  treated.  Part  Second  takes 
up  the  prose  authors  in  historical  order,  from  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury up  to  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth. 

Hiram  Corson,  Prof.  English  Lit- 
erature, Cornell  University :  With- 
out going  outside  of  this  book,  an  ear- 
nest student  could  get  a  knowledge 
of  English  prose  styles,  based  on  the 
soundest  principles  of  criticism,  such 
as  he  could  not  get  in  any  twenty 
volumes  which  I  know  of. 

Katherine  Lee  Bates,  Prof,  of 
English,  Wellesley  College :  It  is  of 
sterling  value. 

John  M.  Ellis,  Prof,  of  English 
Literature,  Oberlin  College :  I  am 
osing  it  for  reference  with  great  in- 


terest. The  criticisms  and  comments 
on  authors  are  admirable  —  the  best, 
on  the  whole,  that  I  have  met  with 
in  any  text-book. 

J.  Scott  Clark,  Prof,  of  Rhetoric, 
Syracuse  University :  We  have  now 
given  Minto's  English  Prose  a  good 
trial,  and  I  am  so  much  pleased  that 
I  want  some  more  of  the  same. 

A.  W.  Long,  Wofford  College,  Spar- 
tanburr/,  S.C.:  I  have  used  Minto's 
English  Poets  and  English  Prose  the 
past  year,  and  am  greatly  pleased 
with  the  results. 


The  Introduction  to  Minto's  English  Prose. 

44  pages.    12mo.    Paper,  15  cents. 

Reprinted  in  this  form  especially  for  the  use  of  the  C.  L.  S.  C. 

Minto's   Characteristics  of  the  English   Poets, 

from  Chaucer  to  Shirley. 

By  WILLIAM  MINTO,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Logic  and  English  Literature 
in  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  Scotland.  12mo.  Cloth,  xi  +  382  pages. 
Mailing  price,  §1.65;  for  introduction,  &1.50;  allowance,  40  cents. 

T1HE  chief  objects  of  the  author  are:   (1)  To  bring  into  clear 
light  the  characteristics  of  the  several  poets ;  and  (2)  to  trace 
how  far  each  was  influenced  by  his  literary  predecessors  and  his 
contemporaries. 


HIGHER  ENGLISH. 


11 


Selections  in  English  Prose  from  Elizabeth  to 

Victoria.    1580-1880. 

By  JAMES  M.  GARNETT,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Liter- 
ature in  the  University  of  Virginia.  12mo.  Cloth,  ix  +  701  pages. 
By  mail,  $1.65  ;  for  introduction,  §1.50. 


work  includes  selections  from  Lyly,  Sidney,  Hooker,  Bacon, 
Ben  Jonson,  Browne,  Fuller,  Milton,  Clarendon,  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Cowley,  Temple,  Dryden,  Defoe,  Swift,  Addison,  Steele,  Boling- 
broke,  Johnson,  Hume,  Goldsmith,  Burke,  Gibbon,  Scott,  Southey, 
Coleridge,  Lamb,  Hazlitt,  Hunt,  Landor,  De  Quincey,  Carlyle,  and 
Macaulay.  The  selections  are  accompanied  by  such  explanatory 
notes  as  have  been  deemed  necessary,  and  will  average  some  twenty 
pages  each.  The  object  is  to  provide  students  with  the  texts  them- 
selves of  the  most  prominent  writers  of  English  prose  for  the  past 
three  hundred  years  in  selections  of  sufficient  length  to  be  charac- 
teristic of  the  author,  and,  when  possible,  they  are  complete  works 
or  sections  of  works.  The  book  will  serve  as  a  companion  volume 
to  Minto's  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature,  or  may  be  used  in 
connection  with  any  other  manual  of  English  literature. 


J.  M.  Hart,  Prof,  of  English,  Cor- 
nell University :  So  far  as  I  can  see 
at  a  first  glance,  it  seems  just  what 
I  need.  .  .  .  The  book  promises  me 
great  comfort. 

T.  W.  Hunt,  Prof,  of  English, 
Princeton  College :  I  find  in  it  that 
critical  discrimination  and  keen  lit- 
erary insight  which  I  expected  to 
find  in  a  work  from  Professor  Gar- 
nett.  I  am  sure  that  it  -will  be  of 
practical  service  to  all  those  who 
have  to  do  with  the  stiic1  •  and 
teaching  of  our  English  prose. 

Louise  M.  Hodgkins,  Prof,  of 
English,  Wellesley  College :  It  well 
supplements  Minto,  and  well  illus- 
trates English  thought  from  Eliza- 
beth to  Victoria.  ...  It  is  a  fine 
book  of  selections,  and  I  shall  use 
it  In  my  work. 


F.  B.  Gummere,  Prof,  of  English, 
Haverford  College :  I  like  the  plan, 
the  selections,  and  the  making  of  the 
book. 

James  E.  Truax,  Prof,  of  English, 
Union  College:  It  is  a  welcome  ar- 
rival. Hitherto  I  have  been  com- 
pelled to  send  the  students  to  the 
library  for  assignments  in  connec- 
tion with  Minto.  Henceforth  it  is 
possible  to  put  an  alcove  into  the 
hands  of  each  student,  in  the  shape 
of  this  timely  volume,  and  to  relieve 
him  from  many  inconveniences  that 
necessarily  belonged  to  the  other 
method. 

H.  N.  Ogden,  West  Virginia  Uni- 
versity :  The  book  fulfils  my  expec- 
tations in  every  respect,  and  will 
become  an  indispensable  help  in  the 
work  of  our  senior  English  class. 


12 


HIGHER   ENGLISH. 


Sidney's  Defense  of  Poesy. 


Edited  with  an  Introduction  and  Notes  by  ALBEKT  S.  COOK,  Professor 
of  English  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth,  xlv  + 103  pages.  By 
mail,  90  cents ;  for  introduction,  80  cents. 

A  S  a  classic  text-book  of  literary  aesthetics,  Sidney's  Defense 
"^  has  enduring  interest  and  value;  but  there  is  another  good 
reason  for  the  marked  attention  received  by  this  book.  The  whole 
conception  of  the  editor's  work  differs  from  the  conventional  idea. 
The  notes  are  not  mere  items  of  learning,  illustrative  only  of 
details.  They  are  intended  so  to  supplement  the  text  of  the 
author  and  the  Introduction  that  the  study  of  the  connected 
whole,  on  lines  indicated  by  the  Specimen  Questions  and  Topics, 
shall  be  a  cumulative  process,  expanding  and  enriching  the  mind 
of  the  student,  as  well  as  informing  it  regarding  the  views  of  a 
distinguished  and  representative  man  who  lived  in  one  of  the  most 
vital  periods  in  the  history  of  our  literature.  This  idea  will  make 
itself  manifest  as  the  cumulative  process  is  carried  on.  Something 
of  the  character  of  Sidney  as  a  man,  of  the  grandeur  of  his  theme, 
of  the  significance  of  poetry,  of  sound  methods  of  profiting  by 
poetry  and  of  judging  it,  —  ought  to  be  disclosed  by  study  of  the 
book.  Everything  is  considered  with  reference  to  the  learner,  as 
far  as  possible ;  and  the  point  of  view  is  not  exclusively  that  of 
the  grammarian,  the  antiquary,  the  rhetorician,  or  the  explorer  of 
Elizabethan  literature,  but  has  been  chosen  to  include  something 
of  all  these,  and  more. 


George  L.  Kittredge.  Prof,  of 
Enylish,  Harvard  University :  It  is 
extremely  well  done,  and  ought  to 
be  extremely  useful. 

William  Minto,  Prof,  of  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Aberdeen :  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  thorough 
and  instructive  piece  of  work.  The 
interests  of  the  student  are  consulted 
in  every  sentence  of  the  Introduction 
and  Notes,  and  the  paper  of  questions 
is  admirable  as  a  guide  to  the  thor- 
ough study  of  the  substance  of  the 
essay.  There  is  no  surplusage,  no 
flabbiness. 


F.  B.  Gummere,  Prof,  of  English 
and  German,  Haverford  College :  It 
is  a  wholly  admirable  piece  of  work, 
and  has  already  done  good  service  in 
my  class. 

John  F.  Genung,  Professor  of 
Ii/t<  t<  ,'ic,  Amherst  College:  It  is  the 
work  of  a  true  scholar,  who  at  every 
step  is  mindful  not  only  of  the  inter- 
est of  the  work  as  a  monument  of  the 
past,  but  of  its  value  for  all  time  as 
an  exposition  of  the  art  of  poetry. 
Introduction  and  notes  are  alike  ex- 
cellent, and  the  tasteful  print  and 
binding  leave  nothing  to  be  desired. 


HIGHER   ENGLISH. 


13 


Shelley's  Defense  of  Poetry. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of 
English  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth,  xxvi  +  86  pages.  Price  by 
mail,  60  cents ;  for  introduction,  50  cents. 

OHELLEY'S  Defense  may  be  regarded  as  a  companion-piece  to 
that  of  Sidney.  In  their  diction,  however,  the  one  is  of  the 
sixteenth  century  and  the  other  of  the  nineteenth.  For  this  reason 
a  comparison  of  the  two  is  of  interest  to  the  student  of  historical 
English  style.  But,  apart  from  this,  the  intrinsic  merits  of  Shelley's 
essay  must  ever  recommend  it  to  the  lover  of  poetry  and  of  beauti- 
ful English.  The  truth  which  he  perceives  and  expounds  is  one 
which  peculiarly  needs  enforcement  at  the  present  day,  and  it  is 
nowhere  presented  in  a  more  concise  or  attractive  form. 


John  F.  Genung,  Prof,  of  Rhetoric, 
Amherst  College :  By  his  excellent 
editions  of  these  three  works,  Profes- 
sor Cook  is  doing  invaluable  service 
for  the  study  of  poetry.  The  works 
themselves,  written  by  men  who  were 
masters  alike  of  poetry  and  prose, 
are  standard  as  literature;  and  in 


the  introductions  and  notes,  which 
evince  in  every  part  the  thorough  and 
sympathetic  scholar,  as  also  in  the 
beautiful  form  given  to  the  books  by 
printer  and  binder,  the  student  has 
all  the  help  to  the  reading  of  them 
that  he  can  desire. 


Cardinal  Newman's  Essay  on  Poetry, 

With  reference  to  Aristotle's  Poetics.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of  English  in  Yale  University. 
8vo.  Limp  cloth,  x  +  36  pages.  Mailing  price,  35  cents ;  for  introduc- 
tion, 30  cents. 

rpHE  study  of  what  is  essential  and  what  accidental  in  poetry  is 
more  and  more  engaging  the  attention  of  thoughtful  men, 
particularly  those  occupied  with  educational  work.  Newman's 
Essay  expresses  the  view  of  one  who  was  a  man  of  both  action 
and  theory.  Besides  this,  the  Essay  is  a  notable  example  of  the 
literary  work  of  one  who  has  been  considered  the  greatest  master 
of  style  in  this  generation.  The  illustrative  apparatus  provided  by 
the  editor  includes  practical  hints  on  the  study  of  Greek  drama  in 
English,  an  index,  an  analysis,  and  a  few  suggestive  notes. 


Hiram  Corson,  Prof,  of  English, 
Cornell  University.  In  its  editorial 
character  it's  an  elegant  piece  of 


work. 


The  introduction  is  a 


multum  in  parvo  bit  of  writing ;  and 
the  notes  show  the  recherche  scholar- 
ship of  the  editor. 


14  HIGHER  ENGLISH. 

Ben  Jonson's  Timber:   or  Discoveries; 

Made  upon  Men  and  Matter,  as  they  have  Flowed  out  of  his  Daily 
Reading,  or  had  their  Reflux  to  his  Peculiar  Notions  of  the  Times. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  FELIX  E.  SCHELLING,  Professor 
in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  12mo.  Cloth,  xxxviii  +  16(i  pages. 
Mailing  price,  90  cents;  for  introduction,  80  cents. 

"  TONSON'S  notes  of  observations  on  men  and  morals,  on  prin- 
ciples and  on  facts,"  says  Mr.  Swinburne,  "  are  superior  to 
Bacon's  in  truth  of  insight,  in  breadth  of  view,  in  vigor  of  reflec- 
tion, and  in  concision  of  eloquence." 

This  is  the  first  attempt  to  edit  a  long-neglected  English  classic, 
which  needs  only  to  be  better  known  to  take  its  place  among  the 
best  examples  of  the  height  of  Elizabethan  prose.  The  text  —  the 
restoration  of  which  entitles  the  book  to  a  place  in  every  library  — 
is  based  on  a  careful  collation  of  the  folio  of  1641  with  subsequent 
editions ;  with  such  modernization  in  spelling  and  punctuation  as 
a  conservative  judgment  has  deemed  imperative.  The  introduction 
and  a  copious  body  of  notes  have  been  framed  with  a  view  to  the 
intelligent  understanding  of  an  author  whose  wide  learning  and 
wealth  of  allusion  make  him  the  fittest  exponent  of  the  scholarship 
as  well  as  the  literary  style  and  feeling  of  his  age. 

A  Primer  of  English  Verse. 

By  HIHAM  CORSON,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Cornell  Univer- 
sity.   12mo.    Cloth.    000  pages.    By  mail,  ;  for  introduction, 
cents. 

rFIIE  leading  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  introduce  the  student 
to  the  aesthetic  and  organic  character  of  English  Verse  —  to 
cultivate  his  susceptibility  to  verse  as  an  inseparable  part  of  poetic 
expression.  To  this  end,  the  various  effects  provided  for  by  the 
poet,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously  on  his  part,  are  given  for 
the  student  to  practice  upon,  until  those  effects  come  out  distinctly 
to  his  feelings.  Much  may  be  taught  and  learned,  as  a  matter  of 
knowledge,  about  verse ;  but  if  the  knowledge  is  not  indorsed  by 
the  feelings  of  the  student,  the  mere  scholarship  of  verse  avails 
little  or  nothing.  It  is  presumed  that  all  the  examples  be  so  vocal- 
ized by  the  teachers,  as  to  bring  the  effects  provided  for  home  to 
the  student ;  the  student,  in  his  turn,  to  be  afterward  required  to 
show  his  sense  of  the  effects,  by  his  own  rendition  of  the  examples. 


HIGHER   ENGLISH.  15 


The  Best  Elizabethan  Plays. 


Edited  with  an  Introduction  by  WILLIAM  R.  THAYER.    12mo.    Cloth. 
till  pages.    By  mail,  $1.40;  for  introduction,  $1.25. 


selection  comprises  The  Jew  of  Malta,  by  Marlowe;  The 
Alchemist,  by  Beu  Jonson  ;  PUlaster,  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher; 
The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  by  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare  ;  and  The 
Duchess  of  Malfi,  by  Webster.  It  thus  affords  not  only  the  best 
specimen  of  the  dramatic  work  of  each  of  the  five  Elizabethan 
poets  who  rank  next  to  Shakespeare,  but  also  a  general  view  of  the 
development  of  English  drama  from  its  rise  in  Marlowe  to  its  last 
strong  expression  in  Webster.  The  necessary  introduction  to  the 
reading  of  each  play  is  concisely  given  in  the  Preface.  Great  care 
has  been  used  in  expurgating  the  text. 


Felix  E.  Schelling,  Professor  of 
English,  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania: This  has  proved  invaluable 
to  me  in  my  Seminar.  All  profes- 
sors of  English  literature  must  wel- 
come such  intelligent  and  scholarly 
editions  of  our  enduring  classics. 


Charles  F.  Kichardson.  Prof,  of 
English,  Dartmouth  College :  The 
book  is  an  excellent  one,  intelligently 
edited,  equipped  with  brief  and  sen- 
sible notes,  and  introduced  by  a 
preface  of  real  critical  insight.  Alto- 
gether, it  is  well  fitted  for  college  use. 


Five  Short  Courses  of  Reading  in  English  Litera- 

ture. 

With  Biographical  and  Critical  References.  By  C.  T.  WINCHESTER,  Pro- 
fessor of  English  Literature  in  Wesleyan  University.  Sq.  16mo.  Cloth. 
v  +  99  pages.  Mailing  price,  45  cents  ;  for  introduction,  40  cents. 


little  book  lays  out  five  short  courses  of  reading  from  the 
most  prominent  writers  in  pure  literature  of  the  last  three'  cen- 
turies, beginning  with  Marlowe  and  ending  with  Tennyson.  Each 
of  these  courses  is  followed  by  a  supplementary  course,  somewhat 
longer,  for  those  who  have  time  for  more  extended  reading  ;  so  that 
the  shorter  and  longer  courses,  taken  together,  represent  with  con- 
siderable fulness  the  progress  of  our  literature  in  its  best  specimens 
from  the  Elizabethan  period  to  the  present  day.  The  book  contains 
also  information  as  to  the  best  editions  for  student  use,  with  extended 
and  well  chosen  lists  of  critical  and  biographical  authorities. 


John  F.  Genung,  Prof,  of  Rhetoric, 
Amherst  Coll.,auth.  of  Practical  Ele- 
ments of  Rhetoric,  etc. :  It  is  a  pecu- 


liar satisfaction  to  be  guided  through 
the  great  highway  of  English  Litera- 
ture by  a  teacher  so  competent. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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